


Tearing the Veil from Grace

by ValloryRussups



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/F, F/M, Harry is adopted by Aberforth, Hogsmeade community development later on... kinda, M/M, Marauders' Era, Necromancer Harry, Necromancy, Slytherin Harry, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-13
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-05-13 18:34:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 27,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5712832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ValloryRussups/pseuds/ValloryRussups
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An infant, Harry ends up in his parents' time and dashes the course of events completely. He escapes the orphanage, forges friendships, acquires a pub-keeping mentor, spirals into a twisted relationship, forges friendships, makes enemies, and dreams of truths... And pierces the veil between the dead and the living.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Poetic Tragedy

Warnings: a Very Long Fic, rather slow-building slash with a lot of kinks once it actually starts, Plot, later deaths, torture, gore - the usual (but nothing overwhelmingly graphic).

A year passed since the memorable evening when Albus Dumbledore and Minerva McGonagall doomed young Harry Potter to living with a human farmhouse. A horse, a walrus and a colourful beach ball, which was slowly but steadily becoming more like a pig, hated their unexpected relative with passion surpassing even that of Voldemort.

Luckily, Harry was still just a baby and physically unable to do the chores he would otherwise be made to do. And the strange happenings around the child prevented most of the abuse.

Of course, Petunia and, consequently, her husband Vernon knew about the wretched boy's magic and what it entailed. The woman, after all, had had to grow up with her freakish sister, and, no matter how much she hated them, the displays of accidental magic hardly stumped her.

The sight of dead and rotting creatures roaming the house, however...

Even with their general disgust and ignorance regarding the Wizarding world, the Dursleys knew that it wasn't normal even for _them_.

It wasn't normal to wake up to the chirping sounds of the previously dead parrot, which had been bought to their lovely Dudders on a whim and which everyone had been forgetting to feed.

It wasn't normal to have half-rotten mice and other rodents running around the house on their little paws, making small sounds day and night and disturbing whatever guests the Dursleys wanted to invite.

It wasn't normal to see their garden dead and completely grey-coloured one day, only to find it filled with blooming flowers the next morning.

It wasn't normal to feel afraid, no, _terrified_ , of a small child, who could barely walk on his two feet and had a long road ahead of him to reach the table.

They strived for a life of normalcy, yet the existence of that wretch ruined it all, razed to the ground all their efforts at establishing a generic household.

Now, all their neighbours avoided the Dursleys like the plague. Wherever the family went, people whispered behind their backs about the strange occurrences in the household. Petunia couldn't trade gossip with her so-called 'friends', as they were offended and insulted at not being invited to her house anymore. Vernon's job hung by a thread, because he, too, couldn't hold proper dinner parties with investors and all sorts of influential people.

Out of the inhabitants of the house only Dudley evaded all the social assault and led the life of a happy toddler, albeit the dead animals and insects frightened him. They had taken a great dislike towards him and caused numerous accidents, some of which had harmed him. Petunia wouldn't leave his side for days.

All in all, the life of the family changed drastically in such a short span of time, going from peaceful and quiet to chaotic and hazardous. No one knew when it would all stop, but the patience of one Vernon Dursley would collapse any second.

{ **Tearing the Veil from Grace** }

"I'm sorry, Vernon, old friend, but I _have_ to fire you." A note of apology peeked through in the manager's voice as he stared at his emp- ex-employee with pity.

"B-but-" Vernon spluttered, unable to utter a single coherent word. His life was disintegrating. The mortgage, the vacation, the car, the foodstaffs and clothing and presents... He misheard, obviously.

"There are certain rumours," the man behind the desk commented before shaking his head. He was firing one of his best workers, a good lad, but the clients always came first, and their demands didn't leave him with any other alternative. "Some of them are quite entertaining. And amusing. However, when I have to hear about people not wanting to conduct business with a child abuser, it's not something I can easily ignore, you know."

"A child abuser!" Vernon bellowed. His eyes, deranged and muddled, madly shifted, while his hands balled into fists and his shoulders shook with fury.

Impossible.

His family was normal. He justified his deeds, Petunia justified her deeds, and Dudley would agree with any philosophy as long as he attained his toys, and all agreed that their treatment of the freak deserved appreciation and respect for daring to deal with the abomination. They ventured fight against the abnormal, a feat not many boasted and fewer still achieved.

And for his manager to dismiss it so! As if _Vernon_ was in the wrong-!

"-When so many people talk about the matter," the manager looked up to pierce Vernon's eyes. The obese man gulped. "One has to wonder if there is a seed of truth to these rumours, after all."

"Y-you believe this gossip more than me?" Vernon's tiny eyes widened with disbelief. Childhood friends. They had attended school together, had been hiding in their secret bases, had shared their first drinks and cigarettes and football victories- And a single rumour took it all away. "We have known each other for years!"

The freak's fault. It was all the freak's fault.

The manager sighed and rubbed his temples. His entire form hunched in on itself, world-weary and old, reminding Vernon of his own creeping age.

"Our company works with _people_ , Vernon. And if they don't want you here, I'm sorry to say it, but you are of no use to us. I'll have to let you go."

_Everything_ the freak's fault.

Anger dashed the disbelief; Vernon's face was heating up. He knew who was responsible for this. Who was to blame for all their misfortunes. That little shit had spoilt all their perfect _normal_ life and he was going to pay for that. Vernon would see to it.

The manager watched warily as his ex-subordinate's face swelled with red from rage, and piggy eyes filled with deep hatred. He certainly hoped that his old friend wasn't directing all that loathing at him.

"I have to ask you to clear up your workspace now. The money has already been transferred to your account," he said finally.

Vernon nodded curtly and stormed out of the office. The door slammed shut behind him in a dramatic motion. His fists were clenching and unclenching, and he wanted to badly hurt the abomination, which had ruined his life so completely.

{ **Tearing the Veil from Grace** }

Petunia was watching television when she heard Vernon's car pull to a stop at the driveway. She frowned at that. Her husband was usually the one to work till as late as possible to earn more money for their dear little angel, even if it meant working at weekends sometimes.

Coming from work so early was out of character for him and it made her feel wary. Her suspicions only increased as Vernon stormed into the house with the expression of someone ready to commit a murder.

"Dear? Are you all right?" she asked hesitantly. She left the question 'And why are you at home so early?' unsaid, but both heard it anyway.

"Where is the freak?" he shouted instead of answering. His eyes glinted with righteous fury and Petunia thought that he wouldn't hesitate to hit her if she unwittingly obstructed his plans. Still, trying never hurt.

"In the cupboard, where he should be. He won't be able to escape the place, hopefully. And there are no rodents there to gnaw on the locks, like it happened with the second bedroom. Why?" She moved to the front of the staircase.

Sure, she abhorred the boy, to the point of desiring his death, but she wouldn't let her husband go in jail for the little eyesore. She would help Vernon plan the murder so that it couldn't be linked to them in any way. She had to preserve what was left of her 'respectable lady' status.

Now, though, Vernon wasn't able to think about scheming and careful preparations, because the loathing was burning its way in his insides, consuming and stifling, no other thought permitted under its intolerable net of fire.

He roughly shoved Petunia to the floor. In his deranged state he didn't care about his wife's surprised cry of pain or the fact that she could have broken a couple of her bones with the force he had pushed her. He ignored her winces of pain. He disregarded her shrieks.

The man forcefully knocked the door of the cupboard down and froze at what was inside.

The two-and-a half-year-old child was sitting on a dirty mattress and was curiously watching the spiders dance on the floor in front of him. He looked up when he heard the noise, and fascination in his radiant green eyes changed to confusion as he watched his Uncle stand in the doorway.

Vernon's mouth hung open like that of a fish, and he honestly didn't know what to do or how to act. His brain didn't accommodate a vast range of possibilities, so it grasped nothing further than plan A, missing the point of making up plans B, C, and other letters of the alphabet. All his anger evaporated and pure animalistic _fear_ snapped in its place.

He remembered what the boy was. All the abnormalities.

Petunia regained her footing and, rubbing her aching back, scrambled to the door to see what startled her husband. When she clapped her eyes on the insects, she let out a horrified gasp.

"Insects!" she screeched, wildly flailing her hands about. "In my house!"

It wasn't just one spider dancing, no. That would probably be quite ordinary for their unnatural nephew. The tiny creatures cluttered the floor, crawled up the walls, infested the mattress, steadily broke out of the confines of the cupboard. They littered everything,

For the first time Petunia realised that maybe they shouldn't have left the boy locked in hopes of starving him to death. Next time they should place him somewhere with no life _at all_. Their 'assassination' attempt would have had more chances of success that way.

Well, they would cook up another method after having cleared the entire place of the spiders, which now clustered every inch of the floor. They were on the walls and on the tiles, on the expensive furniture and on the precious frames with the images of a toothless Dudley in them.

Both Dursleys forgot all about the boy as they attempted to kill off as many insects as possible. Vernon stomped on them with his enormous feet, and his face reddened from the physical effort. Petunia wasn't faring much better. She took off her pink fluffy slippers and tried to destroy the spiders swarming the nearest wall, letting out a battle cry with each hit.

All this time Harry was watching his two relatives with enjoyment and childish mirth dancing in his eyes, and clapped his hands. One of his particularly loud giggles drew attention of the winded Vernon Dursley. The man stopped mid-motion and hatefully glared at the boy. The bastard was _laughing_ at them!

"You! Stop it this instant!" he hollered. The walls shook from the sheer force of the cry.

Harry's giggle died in his throat as he stared at his relatives in incomprehension. He couldn't honestly understand why those people didn't have fun as he did. So, with his confusion, eventually the spiders started dropping dead again because no magic and no emotion fuelled them anymore.

The Dursleys were once again preoccupied with dodging the tiny bodies falling at them from the ceiling to pay any real attention to what Harry was doing. And right now the boy tried to escape from the cupboard. He had realized that, somehow, these two weren't happy, and it never ended well for him when they were in such a peculiar mood. Vague recollections of an empty tummy, a dark place, and a train of his own cries knocked on his mind.

"Where are you going, boy!" the horse-faced woman shrieked. As she scrambled to grab him, Vernon beat her to it. He grabbed Harry by the collar of Dudley's old shirt and smashed his fist right in the boy's face.

Harry cried out in pain. He felt as if his face was one huge bruise, not unlike those on his ribs and arms. The obese man punched him a couple of times more before the boy lost his consciousness. Encouraged, Vernon tried to deal the last blows, and his wife's cheers resonated in his ears together with the sound of his rapidly beating heart.

He lifted his hand to punch the freak once more, eager to get rid of this menace. Only…

The fist crashed into the invisible wall right in front of the boy. Vernon howled in pain, cradling his damaged hand. His knuckles ran red, the colour that contrasted sharply with the pale skin of his fist but matched his rage.

"Vernon!" Petunia gasped and rushed to his side. She looked at her husband's red knuckles and moaned about how hurt he must be feeling. "Oh, dear, Vernon! Don't you worry, my sweet, Petunia will take care of your injury, don't worry. Everything will be all right, everything will be okay…"

The walrus slapped her hand away from him and scrambled to his feet. He glared hatefully at the boy he had dropped in his pain.

"It's all this freak's fault! All of it!" He tried to step on the boy, but the wall thwarted hid intentions. He turned to his wife. "This fucking old man told us about these 'wards' or something, didn't he?"

Petunia nodded, uncertain about where this was going. "Yes. When he left _it_ on our doorstep. He wrote about them in the letter."

Vernon smiled sinisterly. "We cannot kill the abomination, but we can get rid of it. Now, I'll take the thing to London's suburbs and dump him there." He frowned when Petunia looked hesitant. "What's up, Pet? Don't you think it's brilliant?"

His wife nodded vigorously. "You will make me the happiest woman on earth if you manage to put him out of our hair. But… don't you fear that the car will get dirty with his dark powers?"

The man patted her back reassuringly.

"Don't worry about it, Pet. After this is over, we will buy a new car and a new home in a different neighbourhood. And we will become the family we have always wanted to be. _Completely normal_."

He squeezed the woman's hand and she smiled.

Yes, their life would be perfect after that. She was sure of it.

{ **Tearing the Veil from Grace** }

Augustus Rookwood swore loudly as he Apparated to the place he didn't recognise. Well, obviously he appeared in the slums of some city, judging by the shady people around and dirty buildings. The man sneered and covered his brown hair with the hood of his cloak. Luckily, he had remembered to cast a notice-me-not charm on himself so that the muggles wouldn't discern his presence.

Clearly, his efforts were unnecessary. The muggles living there were too engaged in their own dubious activities to give a damn about what other people were doing. Augustus cast a glance at a junkie slut bargaining with a drug dealer about the price of the pills. When the man let out a coarse laugh and grabbed the woman's thighs, the wizard sneered and turned away from the disgusting sight.

Muggles. He couldn't understand how someone sympathised with the creatures sunk so low.

His thoughts drifted to his Master, now presumably dead. Lord Voldemort was the only person in their time that had enough guts to stand up for blood purity ideals, a feat not even the most renowned pureblood families had managed to accomplish. They preferred to stand aside and lament at how unfair things were and about their prejudiced society instead of actually doing something.

The Rookwood family was average enough and none of the members stood out in anything. They were well off, but not outstandingly so. They were smart, but their intelligence didn't cross the boundaries of the general Ravenclaw wisdom. Their looks didn't marvel or astound or bedazzle either; most of the Rookwoods carried a mane of brown hair and eyes to match. They didn't lean towards Light or Dark magic, preserving their neutrality and stepping aside to watch the world burn in wars and conflicts instead of dabbling in heroics like the Weasleys and even Malfoys did.

Until Augustus popped into existence, anyway.

The man had managed to get into the Department of Mysteries and become an Unspeakable to spy for their Lord. Not a sly-high feat for a former Ravenclaw. A mere low-ranker, Augustus's position didn't allow him to peek into the darkest secrets of the Ministry. Nevertheless, he had an access to the underground laboratories, where he had managed to create quite a few useful spells and trinkets that would aid the Dark Side when the Dark Lord would return from his unplanned vacation.

When. Never _if_.

Augustus had no doubt that their Master would return one day. He prepared for it diligently. He wanted to be different from all those arrogant fools grovelling at his Lord's feet, to be exceptional and highly valued, regarded as the dearest of assets rivalling even that old snake Lucius. The fact that Augustus craved His approval just as much didn't count.

The brown-haired man barely crossed the border of the dark alley when his attention snapped to the roaring sound of engine. A moment later he saw a fat ugly man bumbling out of the car. The man bore an exceptional resemblance to a walrus with his brown moustache, shaky layers of fat, and tiny eyes. In his hands he held a bundle of blankets, out of which strands of black hair peered.

What intrigued Augustus most, however, was the glare full of loathing that the man shot to the child (?) in his arms.

"Now you will die here, freak," the walrus muttered, placing the bundle on the pavement near the wall. He disregarded the puddle nearby and almost kicked the boy, but then froze in fear, watching something in the far end of the alley.

Augustus turned to look in that direction, too. Yet he was disappointed. There stood nothing more than a foul-smelling rat. Its red eyes were fixed on the obese man, who gulped when the rodent crept closer. Bewildered, Augustus glimpsed it missing chunks of flesh.

"W-what?" the walrus stuttered. "A good ratty, good. You will not touch old Vernon, right? Look, there is this freak full of tasty meat for you, just don't touch me, please!"

The man, Vernon, continued backing out until he bumped into the cool stone wall behind him. The sharp material dug into his back. Suddenly, another rat arrived, this time from the other corner of the alley. Then another. And again. Vernon broke out into sweat. Augustus watched with fascination how the events unfolded.

Vernon's strangled outcry seemed to be a signal of some kind. All the rats in the alley attacked him. They pounced on him and bit in, tearing into his flesh, as they devoured chunks of it. The man screamed in unbearable pain and tried to shake them off but didn't succeed. Their numbers overwhelmed him.

A few minutes later the man was reduced to nothing more than a mess of blood and meat and bones. The rats stopped...

And dropped dead all at once.

Augustus was left staring at the pile of flesh and red liquid. How-? He blinked and shook it off. It wasn't his business to know how muggle rats behaved. Maybe, the man had poison in his system. Or, maybe, it was normal for them. Who knew?

The man couldn't help being curious, though, and he knelt in front of the bundle. Lifting the colourful blanket, he gasped in surprise at the child's face. The boy was sleeping soundly, his breathing so soft it was almost inaudible. His eyebrows were furrowed and he shifted and fussed, as if in pain, having a nightmare, probably.

Most prominent, however, was the angry red scar resting against the pallor of his skin.

Augustus felt rage consume him. _That_ was the reason for their Lord's downfall. The reason why he, Augustus Rookwood, had been hiding in the filth since his status as a Death Eater had been discovered. The reason he had lost the only person who saw some worth in him. The reason most of the Dark purebloods were now hunted, and anyone from a remotely Dark family was sent to Azkaban, just for being who they were, for using the magic their ancestors bestowed upon them in the Books of Shadows and ancient family grimoirs and incunabula.

The child was Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Couldn't-Even-Fucking-Die. The cause of all their pain, misery, and unhappiness.

Augustus raised his wand, Avada Kedavra on his lips, but stopped abruptly. No, it wouldn't do for the boy to die swiftly. He didn't deserve it one bit. Augustus Rookwood would make him pay for all the inconvenience the child had caused.

And didn't he know the perfect punishment?

One of the spells he had invented made a person experience pain worse than Cruciatus every second of their life. He had gotten the idea after reading about Norse snakes, whose venom, even a drop of it, caused unbearable pain to the person ingesting it. The wizard had named it the Loki Curse and prided himself on the invention.

True, he hadn't tested it and didn't know whether it would work. Not to mention that it was a recent invention. Still, he had to try.

With a spiteful glint in his brown eyes the man raised his wand and let the spell fall from his lips-

His eyes widened.

The Arithmancy formulae! One of the number chains created a glitch in the entire construction, and if he were correct, the results-

Augustus's world vanished under a blanket of darkness.

{ **Tearing the Veil from Grace** }

_Year 1962_

Marie let out a contented sigh as she had just finished shopping for the orphanage. The children didn't receive nearly as much nutrition as she would have liked them to, but food remained food in her eyes, and the orphanage didn't afford a greater selection of foods than plain grains, vegetables, and occasional slabs of meat. Sometimes the woman used her personal allowance to gift the well-behaved children with a few sweets or biscuits from her own pocket.

Humming under her breath, Marie ambled to the truck waiting for her, its driver waving at her cheerfully before the man stuffed a cigarette in his mouth. She lucked out this time. The other driver was a nasty man, and the road to Godric's Hollow, long as it was, would be uncomfortable if spent in complete silence without even radio to reduce stress.

When they set off, Marie nested into her favourite shawl, hoping for a shut-eye...

Only to wake up with a start at the driver cussing and angrily gesticulating. She cracked her eyes open to see what that was all about.

A child right in the middle of the road.

Appalled at the person who could abandon their kid in such a dangerous place, she abandoned the truck and rushed to the bundle of blankets.

Determined, she picked up the child to deliver it to the orphanage. It was indeed the blessing from the skies that she found the child before a car ran it over. The driver only shot her a sad look.

"Marie! Why so long?" a plain-looking woman asked when Marie arrived, wearing a displeased expression. "Do you have no shame?"

"Children have been waiting for their food,." another, older woman, joined in. They hardly got any excitement in Godric's Hollow, so when all the oldies received an opportunity to ream into someone else, they grabbed it and bit into it with vigour. "You know we couldn't buy them anything yesterday and they had to eat only bread for a day…" She trailed off, looking at the bundle in Marie's arms.

"I'm sorry; I understand it was selfish of me to take so much time…" Marie smiled hesitantly and gestured at the boy "Umm, we have an addition, as you see."

The old woman, the matron probably, came closer and grabbed the boy. "Such a beautiful child…" she muttered. "Are you sure he was abandoned?"

"I… I don't think any good parent will leave their child in the middle of the road to die."

The matron looked at her sharply. It was one thing to get rid of the child, but she considered it inhumane to kill him. She looked at the quilt and saw the letters HJP engraved in golden stitching.

"HJP?" she read out loud. "Must be his initials." The boy's clothes consisted of second-hand rags, but the blanket was woven of the finest material. Strange.

"Should we name him?"

"Obviously, we can't call him by a set of letters," the matron snapped, irritated.

"How about Hadrian James? Sounds nice enough to me," offered the plump woman who had greeted Marie. Her face showed her disinterest. She was used to getting new kids, after all.

The matron pondered on it. "All right," she finally conceded and tapped her chin with a finger. "Hadrian James it is. Any suggestions about his surname? Marie? Hannah?"

"Umm… Paradis?" Marie timidly offered.

"God, Marie, you are so sentimental sometimes." Hannah sneered. "You can't just go around giving your surname to the orphans."

"It's just that it matches his initials and…" Here Marie's voice lowered into a whisper. "You know I wouldn't live for much longer. I want my father's surname to be passed down."

Hannah's eyes softened as she looked at her fellow caregiver pityingly. Everyone here knew that the woman had some a terminal disease and would live for only a couple of years longer. Marie was pretty useless, but the matron spared her and had provided her with a job here. From that moment they decided to keep her around to do some odd jobs and run errands. And children liked her mild manner and gentle smiles, too.

"Hadrian James Paradis," the matron murmured. "Not bad. Hope he will get along with other children."

Unfortunately, her hopes would be dashed.


	2. Dreams and Darkness Collide

It was a bright early morning, with sun already high up in the sky and shining full blast, and little Harry was enjoying his meal. Or, well, tried to, considering the pandemonium around him.

"-And he didn't get caught! Can you imagine? Sneaking out at night and all, and still not getting caught-" Jimmy Bart, a boy of Harry's age, whispered into his left ear urgently. His hands were nervously playing with the hem of his tattered greying shirt as he sneaked a glance at the older boys, one of whom seemed to be boasting, with a superior air hanging around him.

Little Harry automatically nodded, not knowing who the older boy was and not interested. The food on his plate – a couple of small potatoes and a tiny piece of pork – smelled delicious and looked inviting, and his mouth watered at the scant but tasty substance. Eagerly, the boy stabbed the meat and brought a forkful to his mouth, eyes closing in delight-

A shove. The fork missed his mouth and the pork flew to the ground. Harry followed it with depressed eyes.

A group of children at the neighbouring table rose and ran off to play tag before the caregivers would come to gather them all into the classrooms, and the piece of meat met its doom under the stampede of overly-excited orphans.

Harry's forehead scrunched up into a scowl as the boy looked to his right, glaring death at a little girl who didn't have the decency to even look apologetic but grabbed his elbow and pulled him closer to her to shout over the chaos of voices in the cafeteria.

"The time's almost up, Harry! Didn't Miss Johnson say we have to come earlier to the classroom today?"

Harry strained his ears to catch the last part, washed over as it was by a wave of laughter coming from yet another table, but his attention was snatched by Jimmy, who still hadn't finished talking, and a couple of pretty girls sitting on the opposite side of their table and demanding his contribution to their talk, and a few other small boys who were attempting to drag him to their room and show him the bird eggs they had found.

Waving them all off, Harry tried to concentrate on Cathy Davis, the girl who had spoken.

"Wait 'till I finish eating, at least!" he complained, sending half a potato down his gullet. "Besides, who wants to see this child-hating witch explain stuff to us so early in the morning?"

"She's not a witch; she's a teacher-"

But the other occupants of the table, including the Jimmy who had stopped telling tall tales about another imaginary adventure of someone else, rushed to agree with Harry. Nods and noises of concurrence followed.

"She torm- tarmen- What's the word again?"

"Torments?" Harry supplied helpfully, now finished with his plate but still hungry. He had memorised the word when the caregiver had punished him with learning twenty pages of dictionary by heart after a prank he had pulled on Ben Jonathan, yet another fellow orphan and Harry's enemy.

True, the punishment should have been greater – Harry had made the other boy cry, after all, and then laughed at him uproariously, which Jonathan had fully deserved – but the matron seemed to have a soft spot for him, and the caregivers were easily enchanted by his sweet boyish charm and sheepish laughs and a carefree attitude.

Jimmy nodded sombrely, his face a picture of seriousness, and continued, "Yeah, that. She torments us daily with stuff like writing and numbers and what not- And we're actually expected to remember it!"

"She isn't that bad..." Cathy Davis trailed off with a flicker of uncertain glance to Harry's face.

The other children looked at the wild-haired green-eyed boy, expectation written in their burning eyes. They would support whatever he said, Harry knew, had seen the proof many times. A smile blossomed on his face even as he shook his head. Happy. He felt happy about it.

"Learning isn't that important. I mean, we're children, right?" He swept them with a questioning glance and nodded, not expecting an answer. The children drank in their leader's voice. "It means we have a long life ahead of us to live. And does it really matter if we learn reading and writing and all this boring junk some years later? It's not like we need it _now_!"

"But the caregivers say-" a boy, Sam or something, Harry didn't truly remember, tried to say. Harry frowned and stared at the blond.

"They just... How is it called? Ah! _Manipulate_ you all!" Harry heard that word often in his dreams, said by different sets of lips and with different intonations and with varying connotations, but one thing remained certain for him: manipulation was a bad thing. Especially if the deranged laughter escaping his – in the dreams, he was different; his entire _character_ was different – lips was anything to go by.

_I don't want to think about this stuff,_ he decided resolutely and turned his attention back to his little group. The majority of children had gone to their appropriate classrooms, and the din of the cafeteria had subsided.

His friends were not-so-patiently waiting for him to elaborate.

"Meaning?" Jimmy Bart prompted.

"They are saying this just to get us into those stuffy classrooms and be quiet," Harry patiently explained, shaking off the frightening reminders of _those_ dreams. "Really, Jimmy, you have to be smarter than this."

They were... strange. Sometimes scary, sometimes fascinating, but always unexplainable, and many times Harry just lay in his bed until the very morning just so he wouldn't have to face the dreams –nightmares? – again and wonder if he was slowly going off his rocket in that dreary orphanage in the middle of nowhere.

When he had been little, he would scream in distress and dread and confusion and fright, and anxious caregivers – sometimes with the matron playing mother hen not far behind – would frantically wake him up and then spend all night giving him sweets, soothing him with gentle hands patting his head and his back, and loving, motherly words whispered into his needy ear.

And yet, no matter how much he feared, how much he declined his unreasonable excitement over it, Harry craved for more and more seconds spent participating in that freak show where people wore weird dresses, waved sticks proudly called "wands", could heal a broken arm or leg or neck all in a jiffy, talked to snakes in scary but strangely alluring hisses, and his dream-counterpart, the person he was in them, cackled at death and blood and murder.

Dragons existed. Mermaids sang and combed their hair in lakes. Witches smiled. Magic was real.

Sometimes, Harry felt more at home in that fantasy world than here.

Sometimes, he thought he didn't belong in the grey routinous reality that was Godric's Hollow Orphanage.

But as soon as the revelation came, the fear of _not fitting in_ warded it off, and he was back to his dilemma again.

The group of children mulled over his words, everyone bearing different facial expressions, and Harry allowed himself a moment to relax. It felt good to be liked and admired, but he needed some space, too, and sometimes getting it was so damn difficult.

The orphanage pre-schooling only made it all harder.

If only he didn't have to go to those stupid, useless lessons...

_Crash._

Harry, Cathy, and Jimmy turned around to catch the sight of a furious Miss Johnson – oh, could it be seven o'clock then already? – who had been storming through the crowd of children to gather all those under the age of six, collide with Ben Jonathan, who dropped his plate-filled tray at that.

Fascinated, Harry watched the leftovers of juice spill and flow into an abstract mosaic on the white tiles of the cafeteria.

Some of the remaining food – while the younger children all got meat and potatoes that day, there wasn't enough for the older orphans, and they had all gotten grey repugnant oatmeal – splattered across Miss Johnson's beautiful milky-white dress and even got on her new sandals.

The young woman stood there as her mouth opened and closed over and over again. No sound escaped.

"Uh-oh." Hadrian cast a nervous look at her facial expression that was slowly morphing from bewildered to angered, then at his friends.

He leaned over the table, waving his hand to get the attention of his mates.

He got it.

"Listen here," he muttered urgently, flipping a glance over his shoulder again. "I don't think we should go to the lessons today-"

"But- She's going to get even angrier then!-"

"-You can't mean it, Harry! She'll murder us in our beds!"

"Don't be silly," Harry waved them off while urging Cathy to stand up. "If she does go to our bedrooms at night, somebody's gotta notice if she tries anything. There are six of us, for Heaven's sake!- But I'm not talking 'bout that-"

Behind his back, there broke out shouting and hysteria and loud complaints and an outburst of fury. _Wonderful. Even less time now._

_Do they want to get stuck with an aggravated hag on purpose?_ Harry asked himself.

Ben Jonathan burst into tears, and Harry couldn't keep himself from forming a vindictive smile. _Get that, you git! Don't you regret trying to push me off the stairs now?_

Small revenge: check.

Thoughts in his head churned merrily as Harry urged his friends to speed up and dash to the second exit, through the kitchens, to which he had access thanks to his good relationship with the menacing cook.

No pre-school, and his friends still followed him wherever!

Harry couldn't imagine life different, or better.

**{Tearing the Veil from Grace}**

As soon as Harry opened his eyes and slid into the dream, he realised that today it would be a nightmare.

_I have to get out of here_ , he thought, trying to frantically look around. Except that eyes were not his own, and his gaze was still pinning down a battered man Harry had seen a couple of times before. Before, the person, the 'druid', had looked so majestically powerful and enchanting, none of that pitiful state. _Quickly. Fast. Please. I hope that someone finds me tossing in my sleep and wakes me up- Oh, God. I don't want to see this._

The frenzy did not pass, and only intensified when Harry heard his voice ( _except that it isn't mine. It can't be_ ) hiss, and felt the familiar by now slippery wetness moving up his arm as it tagged along with the equally slippery thin body.

Ah, yes. The snake. Nagini, his dream counterpart called it- _her_. Whatever.

As she watched the scene unfolding in front of their eyes, her scales glimmered in the well-lit cave adorned with animal bits: furs, skins, horns, and heads, and hooves. That community Harry briefly glimpsed valued those things a lot, and this part of the cave was the immobile man's home. The quantity of the game and the trophies marked his high status, or so his comrade had once remarked off-handedly.

"Tut, tut, didn't I tell you in precise detail what would a betrayal from your part mean for your well-being, Eudeyrn?" the cold voice that would haunt Harry during the day and in the other, normal nightmares, drawled. "I was so merciful to you, giving you a chance to participate in the rebuilding of the wizarding world..." Suddenly, his fists tightened and a storm of rage washed away the calmness. "And you dare throw all my kindness back to my face! What did this mudblood-lover offer that you hadn't already had?"

Harry didn't want to be there. He wanted to rebel, but didn't know how; the mechanics of this entire phenomenon represented a mystery to him. He wanted to change what he feared would come next, like it always did in the dreams, – it was wrong, even his child's mind understood it – but the body was not his own and moved on its own accord, or rather, guided by the will of the terrible person Harry was in the dreams.

"Don't want to reply?" the voice – it was much simpler thinking of it in abstract – mused before breaking into dark chuckles. "Oh, yes, you _can't_. Sometimes, I forget how effective the petrification spell is."

The man on the floor whimpered. Tried to. Harry could see Eudeyrn's eyes darting from one side to the other in search of a means to either end his sufferings or flee, but an obscure part of Harry, the one connected to the person he was here, knew he wouldn't find one.

The boy's consciousness flailed in panic and searched for a swift escape, but, like always, an invisible power forced it to root to the body that didn't belong to Harry.

It was all...

Suffocating. Immobilising. Terrifying.

He wanted to help. He _needed_ to help. It was the right, the proper thing, as all their caregivers had taught them. _Human life is precious, and taking it or threatening it is the epitome of evil_ , the voice of Miss Johnson sternly preached in his mind as memories transported Harry to that day in the classroom when the woman had revealed what made up the very core of goodness and what was put on a high pedestal amongst the judges in the highest Heavens: compassion.

Harry felt his body move. The lax hold around the stick – the wand, he reminded himself, for this was how the occasional person he saw called it – tightened before lifting it and flicking.

A swish – and the druid man's lips parted, his eyes no longer the only moving part of his body.

Relief swished through Harry's spirit.

_Surely, now this is going to end? It's sorta like Mrs Rickety's punishments, right? Always threatening and scary, but when it actually comes to it, she lets everyone off the hook unless you do something... well, truly bad. And this guy looks nice. Certainly better than the me of here does. His punishment can't be too mean._

Eudeyrn, previously writhing but now still as a corpse, lifted his chin. Harry would have gasped if he could: a boyish grin adorned the man's face he had seen a couple of times before, always in his dreams, always benevolent and kind, now bared his teeth in an animalistic grimace rivalling that of the beheaded animals' in the cave. As if a final parting.

Harry's blood froze in his veins.

Eudeyrn threw his head back and laughed.

"The mistake you are committing now is the one that our vates has predicted," he warned hoarsely. His bright eyes reflected his triumph.

Harry's voice scoffed.

"That woman is as old as the musty cave she dwells in. Obviously, she errs. Both in her predictions and in her judgement." A cruel smile spread across his lips. "After all, had she been in good mental health, she would have never allowed me in. Another oversight of hers."

"If you go through with your betrayal, your dear one will perish, and we will not disclose the recipe for a cure," Eudeyrn snarled, his voice begging desperately but also in genuine concern, as if he didn't really care about himself but about that person who would be denied medicine.

'Harry' threw his head back to erupt into a peal of chuckles, high and cold, like the moon. A snide smirk spread across his lips as he petted Nagini.

"Are you attempting to bribe your way out of death?"

"Predicting _your_ death, I would say." The man's lips curled as he spat, "Which is long overdue. Albus Dumbledore should have smothered you before you reached the height of your powers."

'Harry' threw his head backwards and erupted into a merry bout of chuckles. Amusement lurked in his voice when he spoke again.

"If you believe that this is the limit of my abilities, then your vates didn't see anything at all. And never will again, because right now my faithful servant is working on her." He raised a mocking brow, daring the other to explode into a round of insults. "You didn't think I would live your traitorous lair without a final souvenir?"

The druid's eyes widened and he struggled to get up and fight 'Harry', all under the latter's cruel gaze. His efforts were in vain.

"You don't dare- Fool! You are making your situation worse! What on earth would make you kill _her_ -"

"You didn't imagine that I would ever find out that your community were the ones whispering into the ears of the old coot of my supposed 'evil' and destructive destiny. Dumbledore has never learnt to keep his meddling nature in place, and it seems like his allies will have to pay the price." He sneered. "As always. Never himself."

"You are achieving nothing. Alaunus will succeed me, and we will choose another vates in place of Old Innogen, but when the time comes for you to seek out help, you will not find it. No support, no allies... You will fail. We have Seen it."

"I will never need your help," 'Harry' commented lightly, amusement dancing in his voice. "Never did, never will. Wishful thinking, my friend, is the one habit you should have gotten rid yourself of years ago." He tapped his chin in thought. "Well, at least you die a deluded fool with no regrets... I suppose you may count this a victory."

A cold chuckle escaped him and the wand in his fingers trembled with excitement, just as Harry's consciousness flailed about in panic, attempting to break through the haze the dream induced in him, and when the realisation crashed home that he couldn't escape or hide or cover his eyes and ears, and he screamed and resigned himself to a night of horrors, a sensation of someone touching him outside flooded him, and those gentle hands pulled him out.

**{Tearing the Veil from Grace}**

"Harry, Harry!" Mrs. Rickety, the matron of the orphanage cried out softly but frantically. Harry cracked his bleary eyes open to find a ring of concerned caregivers all watching him with different levels of concern lacing their expressions. He tried for a smile. It failed. "Are you having nightmares again?"

"Poor dear!"

"Do you want a biscuit? I must have some in the cupboard. They are nice, with chocolate!"

Harry gratefully smiled at their bustling, each of the women offering him a treat or a pat on the head or a kiss in the cheek – those he didn't like much but, well, wouldn't it be rude to bat them away? The sweets he accepted graciously, on the other hand. If nothing else, they worked wonderfully as bargaining chips with some older boys and girls, and Harry could always exchange the food he was so often given for a toy soldier or a cards or a nice scarf to don on in winter. The orphanage worked like that: everyone swapped objects and extracted favours, the children adored by the caregivers having the most profit.

Eventually, everyone left. Only Harry's three roommates remained – staying oddly silent, and even- Harry checked Jimmy's shuddering form. Yep. Even fearful. He frowned in puzzlement.

"Hey," he addressed them in a whisper. The room, star-lit through the wide curtain-less windows, didn't conceal anyone's expression; Harry clearly eyed Jimmy and Ben and two other, new boys whose names he couldn't quite remember. "They left. Sorry for waking you up."

"Again," one of the newcomers muttered.

Harry scratched the back of his head sheepishly. What a lousy roommate he made! Well, it's not like he asked for the nightmares, though. The contrary: he would gladly get rid of them, if only he knew how. While earlier he had found them to be an enchanting flight of imagination, some fuel for day-dreaming during the classes, after the visions had become more violent and confusing, he wanted them to stop.

Harry idly shifted his gaze to Ben Jonathan, only to freeze when he saw fright mixed with seeds of loathing.

"Jonathan? Why are you looking at me like this?"

"Wh- What was it?" Harry had to strain his ears to hear the question, and when he did, he tilted his head in confusion.

"Talking 'bout my nightmare? Big deal, been having them since forever. Should be used by now, no? Or are you gonna complain that I'm interrupting your beauty sleep again?"

Jonathan's constant stream of complaints was probably one of the main reasons they didn't get along well. The older boy lamented and nagged and whined, which often caused Harry to snap at him or go to the nearest caregiver to silence him. Obviously, an extra punishment didn't thrill the blond.

"Not that," Jimmy butted in. He fiddled with his fingers in his ordinary twitchy manner. "The bed frames, they shook... It's... Uh... Maybe 'twas a trick of sight, guys?"

The others traded glances uncertainly, while Harry still swam in his bewilderment.

"The hell are you talking about? The bed frames are sturdy." Harry tapped his with a finger as a proof. "See? Aren't moving. Besides, what _that_ has to do with anything?"

"Well, sometimes strange things happen here..."

"Strange things happen in the village, too." Harry huffed, folding his arms. "Still don't see how that matters."

"They happen around you!" Jonathan snapped at him and poked an accusing finger in Harry's direction, which only made the black-haired boy snort. Jonathan's grin turned vicious. "All those odd things happen only when you're somewhere in here, 'specially when you've got those freaky dreams! Bed frames shake, candles light up, and that's not mentioning that time when our window exploded! You're freaky! Freaky, freaky, freaky!"

Harry barked in laughter. "What? You're idiotic today. Not that you're not like this any other day. The window was some drunkard throwing stones."

"Well," a boy interfered hesitantly, his eyes drifting between Harry and Jonathan. "They never found the bloke..."

"Scampered away, of course," Harry said calmly. He huffed out in aggravation at their doubting glances, but worry was slowly creeping into his gut; they had never interrogated him before. He didn't want it to start now, when he was still-

_-the nice man – tormented and dying, malicious laughs, severed heads of animals on the walls-_

-still under the remaining web of the dream's influence. If pushed... Harry might not react in a nice way. He had proved it before.

And he knew that some of the things he did were beyond the reach of others. Was it arrogance speaking or not, Harry didn't understand, but he always felt something... off about himself. As if he were different. Stronger. With a greater talent and potential, with strange energy bubbling in him and around him, sometimes bursting out – which coincided with the times Jonathan had mentioned, when odd anomalies occurred around him.

Harry had learnt to play the unwitting one by the age of two, but he realised that it wouldn't last forever. One day, someone would find out...

And he didn't doubt that they would be as horrified as he had once been.

Why not, after all?

**{Tearing the Veil from Grace}**

_ANs: you can throw the druids' names outta your heads for a looong while, btw. And there're not supposed to be many visions 'bout Voldy when Harry's still in the orphanage._

Next Chapter: a smidgen of Harry's powers breaking through, a meeting with a canon character.


	3. 'Batty' Bagshot and Revelations

A nine-year-old Harry stared at the gloomy house bathed in the moonlight. Fierce shadows loomed all around the place, increasing the atmosphere of a horror book, and Harry cringed. A thin jacket hugged his upper body, but he should have taken a scarf with him; the night's breath caressed his form with its cold, and he was afraid of getting ill the next day. He should have put his socks on, too, but there hadn't been much time: Jonathan and his other roommates would have awoken, and Harry wanted to sneak out alone.

It was always alone nowadays.

Looking back on his childhood, he should have known that peace would never last. Not in his life, anyway.

Apparently, children didn't play friends with 'freaks'. And that's exactly what his new name was amongst the younger ones now: freak.

When he had discovered the things he could do, he had immediately disclosed the secret to his closes friends, thinking it would boost his popularity.

For a while, it had done. Everyone used to seek him out to witness a floating ball, or a giggling doll, or animated tin soldiers, or a laughing teddy-bear. They would clap and grin, and Harry would bask in the admiration they radiated towards him.

He had been wanted by all, and it had filled him with a sense of warmth and joy.

All until the one day he showed the dangerous side of his talent.

Harry's rival, Ben Jonathan, had lunged at him with his fists and an angry snarl after Harry's brilliant performance with the moving toys. His jealousy had been growing for years and that day it bore fruit. No one had interfered and Harry, being a frail and smaller child, had protected himself in the only way he knew: he had concentrated and levitated some stones to throw them under Jonathan's feet. The older boy had fallen hard on the muddy ground and would not stop weeping from the scrapes on his knees.

It had been the first time caregivers had punished Harry, and since then children preferred not to associate with him much. Only one friend had remained, but a nice family had taken her away soon after.

Adults hardly noticed a thing, but they rarely did. They had their own power plays going on to pay much attention to the squabbles of their wards.

Power plays in general, Harry had noticed, were in vogue in Godric's Hollow's Orphanage. It was a complicated web of groups contending for goods and perks. Additions hardly ever arrived, and families rarely adopted any children, so the groups were pretty much set. Only a few children ever traded sides – a Peter Pettigrew being the most notorious one, but the others had learnt not to trust him: while he cheered the loudest for the group he currently belonged to, when he saw a better leader to join, he followed his desires and left his comrades. The boy never seemed to restrain his disloyal personality.

It always fascinated Harry how far one would go to achieve their ambitions, and people never failed to disenchant him from life with a display of fickle loyalties and fair-weather friendships.

His exclusion even soothed him nowadays.

Well, almost exclusion. They saw him as a freak, but when Harry had trinkets to trade, they momentarily pushed that notion out of their heads. Forgot it and slipped on a smile. A bunch of phonies, they were.

And so, not to be completely forsaken, Harry immersed himself in 'business' – scavenging stuff from the abandoned houses in the neighbourhood. There were hardly any bums in Godric's Hollow, so the only visitors were children on their adventures, and while mostly they picked up whatever they stumbled upon, Harry had a penchant for finding gimcracks they hadn't: odd pumpkin baked goods, or flasks of snowflake-like glitter that chilled him like real snow, or scraps of parchment.

Even now certainty blazed in him when he gazed at a dilapidated house and anticipated another success.

Harry wrapped his jacket tighter around him and inched to the fence. He had to be careful so as not to be seen by the neighbour – an old lady, Batty Bagshot, who hardly ever came out but always observed the life of the village sitting in her rowan rocking chair – and when he made sure of being alone, he quickly jumped over the barrier between him and the house.

The trees, blackened from a fire, hosted an owl who hooted as if in greeting. He hoped the owl was the only living being around – it'd be no fun to bump into rats, who seriously crept him out.

Once inside the house, Harry inspected the charred remnants of furniture and the vestiges of the mosaic on one of the walls that depicted skies and mythical creatures of some sort, scaled and winged and feathered. He spared a moment to simply enjoy the way colours melted into each other and admire the work before shaking his head and looking around for something he could use.

The drawers didn't yield results, so he climbed up the staircase – creaking but thankfully intact – to examine the first floor, where he found a small treasure under a bed in the second bedroom.

Groaning from the weight, Harry pulled out a trunk which looked just like those in the historical films: blue wood and metal, engravings on the lid, the most prominent of them a circle of spidery symbols which sunk into the surface of the object. Excitement rushed through Harry when he opened the trunk.

Yet, the findings disappointed him.

With a sceptical expression on his childish face Harry withdrew a couple of golden balls with dangling wings, a few coins of different metals, an inkwell, a few feathers which looked sharpened at the point, just like a pen, parchment with strange formulae and symbols and scribbles, a souvenir (a tiny broom-like thing)...

Disappointment thrumming in his veins, Harry still didn't let his findings go to waste as he shoved all the items inside a bag he had retrieved for that purpose. His gaze brushed the open trunk again, and on the inside part of the lid he stumbled across a scribbled line of 'B. Wright' – probably the name of the former owner of the trunk and the house. The name didn't tell Harry anything.

He studied the parchment. He had trouble reading, since half the text consisted of the same weird symbols he had read on the lid of the trunk, but what he did make out made him scoff.

A study in levitation! As if.

That 'B. Wright' must have been a loon, Harry grimly decided, ignoring the fact that he often displayed his own ability to levitate objects.

Idly, he glanced around once again in hopes of finding something better, but it was in vain. Well, he would trade the golden balls, he thought, or at least one of them. An inkwell, too, maybe. Oh, and the coins; albeit he saw the design for the first time, some collector would dig it.

Harry steeled himself before the escaping into the cool nightly air. His bag dangled uncomfortably off his shoulder and hit him in the hip, which added to the inconvenience of it all. He didn't really need the things he traded, but the chase after some peculiar trinket allowed him to shoo away the emptiness that resided in his bones most of the time.

Dreary atmosphere, gloomy skies, the blockade of trees surrounding the orphanage – all of it tallied up to shut out joy and optimism.

Also, his escapades allowed Harry to take his mind off the dreams that decreased in quantity but still refused to end. Some nights, he preferred not to sleep at all, instead using the creative mood to develop his strange abilities he termed simply as Powers. Yes, he put the capital 'P' on purpose.

Once outside, he shot a fleeting look at Bagshot's house to assure himself she hadn't seen him lurking around.

His blood froze.

Lights of various colours and levels of luminescence floated behind the fence like snowflakes laced with magic, swirling inside like a tornado, never once surpassing the boundaries of the garden. Harry inched closer. His curiosity always got the best of him.

He bypassed the gate, not risking entering the polite way, and edged to where wooden boards were parting from age. Pulling them apart, Harry snuck his head in and watched, bemused, how old Bagshot waved a stick she held in her left hand over the vegetables which proudly swelled as if under the rays of sunlight. The floating particles of light, on the other hand, picked up the stray bits of rubbish and vanished it somehow – at least, when they faded away, Harry didn't see any yellow leaves littering the garden and the porch, nor any junk.

Marvelled, he couldn't stop a gasp from escaping his mouth.

Immediately, the old woman in the middle of all the beauty spun around, her eyes vaguely searching in the direction Harry was hiding in.

He cursed under his breath.

"Who is there?" she asked, her voice as soft as the breath of light wind. Her frightening eyes thick with cataracts contrasted sharply with her fragile stature and the almost absence of hair. She didn't scare Harry, so he took a breath and got out of the hole in the wooden fence.

Bagshot stared at him, while Harry shuffled his feet. Silence stretched.

"I saw you in the village the other day," the old lady finally murmured. She couldn't speak loudly, Harry saw, so he stepped closer to hear better.

"Uhm… Maybe," he replied vaguely. After another pause he said, "What were you doing with that stick?"

It looked-

It looked just like a wand the monsters in his nightmares carried.

He gestured at the object she held onto. Her fingers clenched tight around the handle and she raised it in such an abrupt motion that Harry scooted backwards like a frightened animal.

"I have to obliviate you," Bagshot said simply, as if it explained everything.

"Yeah. I don't really agree with you." Harry eyed the stick mistrustfully. It looked like one of those sticks in the fairytales Mrs Johnson used to read: ornate and taken care of, shiny wood and all. A wand, his mind supplied again. "What the hell is 'obliviate' anyway? Are you going to beat me up with this?"

"Muggle," she murmured with a sigh. The stick rose a bit higher.

Harry, from his part, was getting more and more convinced that those who called her 'Batty' Bagshot rightfully deemed her crazy. He didn't understand half the balderdash she muttered!

"Look, Mrs Bagshot-"

"It's Miss, actually, my sweet child."

He could see why.

"Whatever. Could you at least tell me how you did what you did before you start dashing my brains out with this stick? I mean, I can sometimes do something of the sort – lights, floating stuff, other weird things-"

A sparkle of interest entered her eyes and she advanced forward, rather energetically for a woman who looked so frail and sickly.

"Weird things, you say?" Bagshot's head tilted. A slow smile bloomed on her face and blinded Harry with its benevolence. "Curiouser and curiouser, as they say… Perhaps that's why you have bypassed the muggle-repelling wards. What sort of things?"

When he saw that she wasn't attacking him, Harry dared to breathe freely and walk over to her. They didn't stand too closely, but they didn't have to speak loud to be heard.

"Making toys move," Harry started recounting, a frown on his face. Usually he behaved more guardedly with complete strangers, but if he told anything to that loony old bag, no one would believe her if she retold anything. Sometimes insanity protected secrets well. "Freezing water. Shaping fire- y'know, making bits of flames take the shape of an animal."

He shrugged.

"What else?" she urged him.

"It's small stuff. Years ago I did really awesome things – bit weird, too. Even weirder than levitating items, I mean." Harry scratched the back of his neck, trying to recall. A particularly strong gust of wind made him shudder. The old woman noticed.

"Oh, how remiss of me! You are freezing, dearie." She shook her head and urged him inside as Harry jolted at her abrupt grip on his shoulder. "Let's get you a cup of good cream tea; Aberforth gave me some just this afternoon."

Bagshot beckoned him into a lounge, warm and stuffy, made in brown and orange tones so contrasting with the rather gloomy exterior of the house. Harry yelped when a rocking chair shot out from the corner and bumped into him from behind, making the boy fall into it. The motley quilt that had been lying so placidly before, now wrapped him into its woollen fold, and Harry almost hyperventilated.

"I'm a good hostess, I am," the old woman continued muttering before snapping her fingers and calling as loudly as she could, "Crippy!"

Harry's jaw dropped when he saw the creature that appeared at her cry, a tiny greyish thing with floppy ears and abnormally large eyes, dressed in a woollen toga made of the same material as the quilt that still strangled him.

"Mistress wants Crippy?" the thing asked in a woebegone voice.

Bagshot nodded and started listing, "Cream tea and those tarts you've made just yesterday, as well as those crumpets I asked for this afternoon- Oh, and never forget the red velvet cake!" She winked at Harry. "I've got the right sweet tooth, dearie, so don't worry: you'll have the best treats! The very best!"

Harry, from his part, could only stare. And continue wrestling with the quilt, which seemed dead set on stranglng him.

"Could you-" He coughed and tried to gesture at the heavy fabric with his hands under it. "-Uhm, tell it to let me go?"

"Oh, of course, of course." She waved her hand and the nuisance around him stilled. "Gellert can be a bit enthusiastic to receive visitors these days, even if you're a muggleborn and he doesn't like them much. Just like his counterpart, I'd say."

The old woman dropped into another rocking chair and muttered something accompanied by the wave of the stick again. Harry, meanwhile, examined the room around him. One word aptly described it: cluttered. Various books not only filled the shelves but littered the bright carpet with moving yellow stars on it, along with scraps and rolls of parchment, inkwells both full and empty, feathers, and other trinkets: a sewing kit, cloths of different colours near it, amulets and shiny polished stones…

A glass case took up half the space at one of the walls, full of exquisite boxes, antiquities, jars with plants inside or dried vegetation, scales and teeth and claws proudly on display, and cups, medals, and cups once more – lots and lots of them, mostly gold or silver and hosting jewellery inside.

Even if Harry filched something, a plenty of trinkets would remain – not that he was going to, of course. Only abandoned houses and houses that townspeople used as summer villas of sorts, which usually stayed empty until the time for a vacation struck again.

"So this piece of murdering fabric is called 'Gellert'?" he asked to force himself look away from the fascinating objects.

Bathilda Bagshot nested deeper into her rocking chair and sighed in contentment before replying.

"Named him after my nephew, I did. He was such a strapping lad, such a brilliant young boy – until he started going Dark." She shook her head sadly. "Now he's rotting in his own prison, my Gellert. Such a waste, such a waste- Oh, well. Now, dearie, how about you tell Bathilda all that you can do? You're one of the orphans, aren't you?"

"Yeah, I'm an orphan." The words didn't hurt to say after so many years of uttering them, even though Harry remembered that in the beginning he had been distraught at the realisation of what parents meant and that he couldn't have them. "Is this why you've invited me? To interrogate me?"

Bathilda laughed, a soft chuckle that resembled a cough.

"I'm bribing you with sweets, aren't I?" She merrily winked at him. Just then a tray of tea and baked goods appeared before them, and although usually Harry never took the sweets strangers offered, he felt oddly at ease now, grabbing a tart. "Magical company is hard to come across in Godric's Hollow nowadays, even though it used to be as popular a place as Ottery St. Catchpole is today. Why, in my former days I hosted as many balls here as Lady Malfoy! Even Phineas Nigellus Black dropped by for a cup of tea – albeit he probably wanted me to vote for him as the next Headmaster, the sneaky fiend, I'm sure he appreciated me."

"Sure," Harry muttered dubiously as he munched on another tart.

Bagshot's ramblings reminded him of a madwoman's rant, but he placidly listened because the food was good and he felt warm. Besides, he wanted to find out how she had done what she had done, and if he breathed a word about it to someone else, they would think him as batty as her.

"Do you know about magic?" she asked out of the blue. Harry choked on the tart.

"Well… Children's fairy tales have it," he replied with a frown on his face. "But I'm a bit too big for them now- I'm nine, I'll have you know!"

Really, it irritated Harry when people thought him to be an overgrown toddler instead of the almost-ten-year-old young man he truly was.

"No, no, I'm not talking about these, although I can lend you this nice Beedle the Bard's book with lots of pictures. I'm talking about what I was doing in the garden and what you, judging by your account, can do, too." The old woman smiled. "Magic."

"Magic," Harry repeated blankly.

Something tingled in his chest at the word, as if he witnessed a biggest dream of his coming true, and what had always been present in his subconscious as a hazy suspicion now flourished into certainty.

"Magic," he repeated again, this time with more enthusiasm, more credulity, more happiness.

"I can tell you all about it," Bagshot offered, and Harry's gaze flew to her. Instantly he saw her in a new light. Possibilities entered his mind, ones that hadn't dared to tread there before, and he returned her smile.

"Please do. I'd like to hear about it."

She told him about Hogwarts and magical communities, about the difference between muggleborns and halfbloods and purebloods, and about pureblood families in general – how they treated muggles, where they lived, how they behaved, and the like. Harry's head buzzed from the onslaught of information, but he somehow endured it all and did his best to memorise all she chattered about.

"So, magic has no limits," Harry said after a while. The old woman shook her head in response.

"It does. Mostly, though, people don't need anything beyond basic spellwork and potions in life, just enough to get by. Grooming charms, household charms…"

"What about offensive spells?" Harry stuttered when she threw him a sharp look. "For self-defence only, of course. I don't mean anything bad."

"Mostly we just petrify and bind; there's little outright violence going on," Bagshot revealed slowly. "We're a peaceful folk, wizards and witches are. Still, you have to be careful with Dark Magic."

"Sounds evil," Harry muttered musingly. His hands rested on his full tummy.

"It isn't, whatever some people say. Or, more exactly, not all of it is evil, just like not all of Light is good – the latter often forgotten by some wizards. By half the Ministry, I'd say – and I mean the Light half, naturally." She drummed a tune with her fingers on the armrest of her rocking chair, pondering how to put it best. "Dark Magic developed hundreds of years later than the Light one, which is partly the reason why it wasn't received with open arms – people had already gotten used to handle it in another way. Some call it 'artificial' even."

"It's silly." Harry scowled. "'Artificial' shouldn't be considered 'evil', right? Anyway, I doubt that it's really that bad."

"Not all of it is bad," the old woman repeated patiently. "You see, Light is the natural magic because it manipulates the elements of nature-"

"Like in the books?" Harry cut in with excitement written on his face. He started to gesticulate. "I can wave my hand and create thunderstorms or floods? Or, or, better yet – breathe fire like a dragon and summon demons and dominate the world!"

Sheer ecstasy pierced through him as he imagined the world wherein all who wronged him would beg for his forgiveness, especially the figure he saw and was in his dreams, that terrifying man who remained a mystery even though Harry glimpsed him many of his nights.

She chuckled her soft cough, and replied, "No, no, dearie, you're very far from that unless you develop Lord-level powers – and even then I don't advise you to strive for world-domination lest you become like my Gellert." The quilt on Harry's shoulders stirred. "You shouldn't confuse Elemental Magic and Light Magic. The latter doesn't deal with the forces of nature directly, but it draws energy from them, usually from a single source at the same time. For instance, when you use the Patronus Charm, you invoke the energy of the air, but it is not a direct manifestation – just a distant echo. Elemental Magic would have solidified the air instead and created a physical guardian instead."

Harry nodded and did his best to look as if he were keeping up. He didn't, but who cared! It sounded so exciting anyway. He couldn't wait until he got his own sti- wand and practised all the wonderful incantations Bagshot talked about.

"Are there any other magic-users living here now?" Harry asked in curiosity. His heart thumped at the possibility. "Any at all, even one other person?"

Old Bagshot tapped her chin pensively. "Hmm… There's dear Aberforth who visits here every other day to see his sister and drops by my place occasionally – you can find him at the graveyard, a good lad, albeit not as brilliant as his brother Albus. Their house is still intact here, warded. That Abbott boy who works in France and hardly ever comes here. Oh, and another muggleborn, also from the orphanage, this one – Peter. Peter Pettigrew."

"Pettigrew!" Harry gaped. "Aren't there any rules which prevent magic from showing up in utter slimy gits?"

Nodding, the old woman agreed solemnly, "Yes, yes, he's not such a good company as you are, dearie. He doesn't know about magic though; I simply caught him in an accidental magic outburst once, but I doubt that he has even understood what it was all about."

"Can you show me how to do it?" Harry demanded excitedly, almost jumping out of his seat.

"I've already told you about Hogwarts-"

"It's going to happen in years!" Harry protested hotly. His fists clenched the motley fabric of the quilt. "Besides, my magic's weird. Aside from the floating that it seems to like, it likes dead things."

"I'm sure you're overreacting." She stuck a crumpet inside her mouth.

"Am not! Flowers and trees always wither around me when I feel very angry or upset. And then there're flies: they seem to drop dead but a moment later they spring back to life, which isn't possible." Harry repeated unsurely, "It isn't possible, right? Resurrecting things."

The old woman looked stumped, as if she were seeing a ghost she hadn't believed she would see. Harry felt a pang in his heart and a stab of pain clogging his throat.

"Resurrecting things, eh. Haven't thought I'd ever see anyone of your elk around." Bagshot's mask-like expression didn't allow Harry to draw any conclusions, so he decided to simply wait.

"You've asked me to show you magic, dearie, but you don't need me as much as you need to go to the graveyard. Death will be a better teacher to you than I ever could."

"Do you hate me now?" Harry asked in a small, plaintive voice. He should have expected that his ability was the one people usually found the vilest.

"If you are what I believe you to be, we should venerate your talent, not scorn it." Something almost worshipful entered her eyes, as if she saw an opportunity she had been waiting for. "Although I advise against bragging about it at every other corner if you don't want to run into problems with the Ministry. Sneak out of the orphanage whenever you can and I'll tell you more. Now, dearie, go home. It's rather late as it is."

Gellert the quilt dropped from his shoulders and pushed Harry out of the rocking chair, a cheerful urging to leave.

"Walk around the graveyard," Bagshot, who wasn't as batty as other villagers imagined her to be, said in parting, casting on him what she called a 'warming charm'. "Drink in the air, the atmosphere, and attempt to communicate with the graves. Envision that you're doing your usual magic, and try out the same techniques on the souls or bodies you see."

"I don't think I'll resurrect a person," Harry doubted softly, tucking a stray lock of hair behind his ear. "It's just flies, usually. Nothing that big."

The old woman waved him off. "Of course you won't, not even for many years to come – the art of Necromancy is not an easy one to master. Just get in touch with your inner nature."

Already outside, Harry made up his mind. Yes, no harm done. Tomorrow he would go and explore the Godric's Hollow graveyard, no matter how much the idea creeped him out.

Finally, he was boarding an adventure that would last him a lifetime.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the reviews! Also, all the characters mentioned in this chapter are canon, including the Abbott guy.


	4. A Man at the Graveyard

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all your fantastic reviews! A lovely reviewer back at ff net pointed out that I haven't posted this chapter on AO3, then I kinda forgot all about it, but now it's finally here. It's a tiny bit longer than the previous ones, too. If you haven't yet read it, enjoy!

Godric's Hollow was a gloomy village.

Harry blamed the forest for it; too tall and too dense, the pines shunned the sun and allowed it entrance only to the small fountain square in the middle of the settlement. The rare sunrays only brought attention to the stale water in the fountain and the lack of people nearby. The only lively place in the whole village was a pub in the square, its walls covered with peeling paintwork. Occasionally, it spat out patrons who took a smoke on the porch, waving their beers at the passers-by before they returned to the bliss of jokes and fun reigning inside.

Even now, as Harry trudged through the village, he had to politely refuse an offer to drink. He doubted the men noticed his age, since sometimes they even offered stray cats to join them.

Thanks to the sunny weather Harry felt warm enough in the folds of his long gingham shirt that hung loosely around his form, even though he shuddered when entering the graveyard. When a gust of wind blew in his face, Harry imagined it as a stray spirit rushing away from its grave in a vain attempt to leave its body. Perhaps he should stop reading those Gothic Romance novels.

He generally avoided the graveyard. He didn't fear ghosts or some other frightening stories that the caregivers scared them with, but he was afraid of his own odd reactions that followed his every movement inside the place.

Longing absorbed him there, along with unbearable sadness, claustrophobia, and sometimes an almost excruciating desire to just… act. Do something.

Escape.

Yet Harry didn't feel the need to escape anything outside the graveyard. Not even the orphanage invoked the desire to run away _now_ instead of waiting until he reached his majority, when they would force him to leave anyway. Harry suspected that life in the streets would be far worse than the quiet animosity of the orphanage.

The feeling was foreign, as if someone else experienced that and directed their emotions and thoughts at Harry.

He hunched and walked faster. His old boots left imprints in the muddy paths between the graves.

Very soon, he noticed a tiny detail that everyone else seemed to ignore: an invisible line divided the graveyard into two parts. Visitors frequented the part closest to the edge of the village. Even now he bumped into men and women crooked with age, faces lined by sorrow, who shuffled to the graves of their families with bunches of flowers in tow.

He never stole the offerings they brought. Didn't linger to hear their conversations.

Yet after a certain line Harry met fewer and fewer people, until he was strolling through a barren space of stone memorials, accompanied only by that feeling of inexplicable longing and his own thoughts. He snuck wary glances around.

Harry noted that statues of angels and wooden crosses ceased as he got deeper into the graveyard, too. The memorials soared higher than usual, long monoliths of coloured stone, and his path lay amidst a Necropolis of columns now. Occasionally, he encountered marble people watching over the burials with solemn gazes, robes so realistically sculptured they seemed to flow in the wind.

The feeling intensified. Bagshot had advised him to go here in search of answers regarding his magic, not to feel scared, yet Harry had no idea what effect that walk would have on him. Or, rather, what he himself was supposed to do when he had never cast a single spell on purpose. Was he supposed to meditate like those Buddhist monks did? Just repeat Abracadabra and wave his hands around in hopes that it would make rain fall down on earth?

And why the graveyard?

Harry scowled to himself and dropped on an iron bench. For a second he observed, and inhaled the air, solemn and strange, playing upon the heartstrings of his soul.

A shadow loomed upon him. He turned around.

Eyes of the palest blue he had ever seen met his. Harry wondered how the bright shade broke through the thick glasses, so wide they overtook half the old man's face, and so ugly even he felt a burst of pity. A beard covered his chin, and strands of hair fell down his shoulders like a lion's mane. Harry's eyes travelled down, tracing the green-blue striped suit with a brooch in the form of a goat pinned to the lapel, a stick- _wand_ hooked casually to his belt, stains on the trousers, leather boots with bright green ribbons instead of shoelaces.

Had Bathilda sent him here to meet this person? Harry opened his mouth. No words came out.

"This ain't no place for a leisure stroll," the old man scolded in a pleasant, low voice, so contrasting with his appearance. A storyteller's voice. Harry's imagination supplied pictures of warm blankets and a cup of milk. A caregiver reading him a story when he had been little.

"It's not nice to tell off people before you even know their name," Harry shot back. A frown crossed his small face.

"It is, when people irritate me."

"Then, your mouth must be busy real often."

"Got no idea, have you?" the old man muttered. He dropped to sit right next to Harry, radiating warmth. The boy, unconsciously, shifted closer. "Where are your parents?"

"'Round here, I guess." Harry shrugged. On receiving a sharp glance, he ignored it and swept the stone monoliths with a look. "Or somewhere else. Who knows?"

When he raised his head, he found the old wizard – for it could only be a wizard, Harry was certain now – surveying him with an expression Harry didn't see on adults often. On anyone, for that matter. A measure of pity – that, he knew. Perhaps some compassion, even. But never… never understanding.

Never such burning, well-meaning curiosity either.

"You don't look too unhappy about not having them with you," the strange person said. Harry's hands clenched.

"They obviously don't feel unhappy without me, do they?" After an awkward pause Harry asked, "Are you visiting someone?"

A long silence ensued on the other end now.

"Yes," the old man deigned to reply just when Harry considered getting up and out of the graveyard. "My mother and my sister."

Harry followed the wizard's gaze to the two similar tombstones standing side by side on the opposite side, half-hidden behind an elaborate fence with symbols emblazoned in blue across the black spikes. Flowerpots guarded the iron entrance on both sides.

"Did you kill them?" Harry asked.

The old wizard raised his hand – and slammed the back of their bench, just behind Harry's head. The boy's eyes widened in fear. He probed inside his core for the power, the magic waiting for its hour of glory, and hoped it would hold against a grown-up wizard.

"It's no damn joke, kid," the old man whispered. He wiped out the rage in his eyes once he saw the fear on Harry's face, and continued in his grumpy voice, "But I should'ave reacted better. Forgive me."

The boy slowly nodded. He didn't release his hold on the magic he awakened yet.

"I'm not joking." Harry grinned weakly. "Not really. Different sorts of guys come here every once in a while- and you look odd. As in, if someone asked me what I imagine a mysterious bloke, after whose visit all the kids in the neighbourhood went missing, looked like, I'd think of your face."

"Over a hundred years old, an' here I find out the bitter truth about myself," the old man grumbled. His earlier anger fell away like layers of dust after sweeping.

"I think it's 'cause you must be a wizard," Harry declared. "You don't belong here, in this place. You _try_ to dress like a- what's the term?" Harry scrunched up his forehead but his memory failed him. "Well, people who don't have magic. But you feel different. Foreign."

"You're an observant lad," the wizard remarked. "I'm Aberforth. Your name?"

"Harry."

"No surname?"

"I've got one… It was given to me in the orphanage, but I've never felt like it belongs to me. I could borrow any other name in the world, call myself that, and it'd feel the same." Harry wondered what else to say. He wanted to know why Batty wanted him to meet this guy – if that had been her intent at all, of course. "Do you come here often?"

"Every week. If I'm unable, one of my relatives does it. She lives here. Bathilda Bagshot's her name. Know her?"

Harry smiled, albeit faintly, and nodded. " _She_ told me to come here. She's a really… uhm… interesting lady. A bit odd, just like you. But nice. She makes yummy tea."

"Crippy's tarts are to die for," the old man agreed gruffly. Standing up, he stretched and extended his hand to Harry. "Come, it's time for us both to go. If you know her, I'm sure she won't mind if both of us drop in."

That foreign reluctance swept through him again. Harry brushed it off. Instead, a hesitant smile graced his face and he allowed Aberforth to lead him away, to a place holding so many secrets he vied to discover.

* * *

Harry marvelled at the possibilities of magic when Aberforth led him through the village and not a single person looked their way. So many opportunities to sneak about! He almost giggled when they entered Bathilda Bagshot's house, looking almost cheerful in the daylight, especially compared to the half-demolished buildings littering the narrow cobblestone street. A few hens with motley feathers ran out to meet them.

"Bathilda!" Aberforth yelled as they entered the house. Harry watched the mud he tracked inside. At the orphanage the caregivers would have killed him for that, but perhaps the wizards, with all the spells they had, didn't worship cleaning quite as much. The stains on the old man's clothes only proved that. "I know the wards 'ave alerted you already!"

"No need to shout, none at all!" the woman's voice rang. A few seconds later sprightly steps stomped down the staircase, and Harry gaped in horror when he saw the old lady wearing a scanty nightgown.

Screw the orphanage, his mind would never recover from _this_ sight. He lamented the absence of a law proclaiming naked old people skimping around illegal.

"Oh, look who we've got here now," Batty cooed when she saw Harry standing dumbstruck by Aberforth's side. As she neared him, the boy inched away. "I didn't think I would see you so soon yet, dearie, not for a few days, at least. Usually it takes quite a while for the information to sink in, for the muggleborn to decide whether they want to go to that 'asylum' place, after all-"

"Cut it out, Bathilda," Aberforth groused, laying his hand on Harry's shoulder. The boy cringed but tolerated it. "You have all the time in the world to traumatise him later. Right now, all I need is some tea and a bit of rest from stupidity." He lowered his voice. "An' I gather that this boy here needs the same."

The old woman nodded solemnly, her almost white eyes glowing in the sunlight.

"You know this home will always provide you with everything you need, Aberforth," she told him before looking at Harry, her gaze very soft, sparking unknown feelings in Harry's chest, "and you as well, of course. You are a very special child, my dear, never forget that, and I always encourage special people, unique people to make something of themselves."

Very special.

At night, when he dreamt of bloodshed, of scary grimaces, of people worse than monsters, thoughts of being special resurfaced again and again. Throughout the day, when he daydreamt of graveyards, he recollected them once more.

The old woman's eyes penetrated his core. A half-smile, that of a witch from a Hansel and Gretel illustration, played on her lips.

The corners of Harry's lips tentatively rose. "Thanks, ma'am- er, Bathilda."

He didn't really trust her. Not yet. But she held the keys to a world he yearned for, and she didn't despise him, and she didn't fear his gifts-

He stayed there.

"Think nothing of it! Let's move to the dining-room, shall we?" she offered. Both wizards followed.

Gellert-the-quilt stifled Harry in a hug as soon as the boy stepped into the room. For the first time someone looked so ridiculously happy to see him. It touched the young wizard so much he deigned to pet its rough texture – he cottoned on that this was, apparently, an alternative, witching version of a dog.

"You know I hate this bloody thing," Aberforth griped as soon as Gellert enveloped Harry.

"And you know the world does not revolve around what you hate and do not hate, child," the old woman replied lightly. "I have problems to solve, not think about accommodating your needs, oh no."

"But surely," Harry began, hoping to glean more information about the magical world before the two forgot about him, "being magical means you can make problems go away?"

If he learnt invisibility, like Aberforth, could he just wander around the village and take whatever he wanted from the denizens without being discovered? And sleep wherever he wanted? He would never have to worry about food or clothes, about dealing with the cruelty of children and adults alike. He could explore the world. Go to London, even!

A different universe erupted behind his eyelids when he closed his eyes and unleashed his imagination.

Yet, both Aberforth and Batty stared at him sadly.

"Nothing's ever this simple," the old man said.

"Aberforth rarely says clever things, but this might just be a unique case when he does. Oh, I _must_ include this occasion in my next book!"

The old man ignored her.

"Witches and wizards deal with a different set of problems. Illnesses, shoddy Ministry, poverty, malfunctioning spells, the whole Dark versus Light debacle…" Aberforth shook his head.

He moved to sit in the chair closest to the glass case with trinkets, while Harry plopped down on a cosy armchair closest to the tiny table with steaming tea and porcelain plates full of vanilla-strawberry pudding.

"Prejudice, too," Batty added quietly.

She glanced at the quilt before her eyes glued to a set of photos hanging by the mantelpiece. Harry saw two teens/young men on them, both wearing bright smiles, their eyes sparkling. One of them had eyes that resembled Aberforth's, albeit that was as far as similarities stretched. The other commanded attention with his beauty. Blond, blue-eyed, dressed in a fine suit, he reminded Harry of men who sometimes adopted children to bring them back a few months later. Those children didn't return the same.

Aberforth avoided looking in the direction of those photos, and Harry decided he would pester him about it later, when the man trusted him a little bit more.

"What sort of pr- prejudice?" he asked instead. "Do you mean… what people who grew up with the magicals have against people like me?"

"Something of sorts, yeah," Aberforth replied. "Nasty thing. I'm not Albus, I don't believe in tailoring our society to the needs of muggleborns like he does – funny, hah, since I remember him expounding on pureblood superiority with that damn imbecilic blond fucktard of his – but killing 'em all off is no way to solve issues."

"Right you are, my dear!" Batty nodded sagely. Her fingers fiddled with a locket on her neck. "This prejudice also creates silly rifts between old families and their offspring who doesn't follow in their footsteps." She shook her head and addressed Aberforth with a hush, "Just the other day I saw Eileen."

"Eileen?" the old wizard asked, his eyebrows meeting.

Harry absorbed every piece of information like a sponge – who cared if he didn't fully understand it now; he could process the new bits of knowledge later in the day, or lying in his bed before he went to sleep, thank God no one really bothered him at such a late hour, and the caregivers didn't honestly care whether the children slept or not, so long as they turned off the lights and acted like they did.

"The Prince girl," Batty reminded. She sighed and pursed her lips in disapproval when she noticed that Aberforth didn't look like it was a big deal. "Poor dear, cast out of her family by her father. True, she married a muggle – and a nasty one, from what I hear! – but her child is still magical and deserves a better life, he does."

"Not all muggles are necessarily bad," Harry felt the need to insert. He himself mostly met the mean sort, true, but something in him still struggled to believe in the existence of families where happiness prevailed.

The old woman waved him away. "This one is. You should have seen that son of hers, a sullen little thing. So bony. Very, very pale. Always with that frightened look in the eyes. No magical child deserves this," she repeated.

Harry noticed that she said 'magical child', so, apparently, muggle children were not included.

"What's his name?" Aberforth asked after a pause.

"Severus, or so Eileen told me when we stopped to chat. The boy didn't talk much, only glared at me all the while." She gasped, remembering something, and looked at Harry. "You are nine, aren't you? Well, Eileen's boy is around that age as well! You will be in the same year at Hogwarts. Aren't you happy, dear?"

Bemused, Harry hesitantly nodded. Well, of course he wasn't. He didn't know the guy and, frankly, he sounded like a piece of work. Harry wasn't going to get involved into anyone's problems but his own.

Aberforth snorted. "Don't listen to her, boy. The Princes are bastards, a stuffy lot, they are, believe in blood purism and that poisons end a quarrel more effectively than words. Keep away from them. You won't miss out on anything, trust me."

Harry widened his eyes at the mention of poisons.

"It's an old family with a rich history," Batty told them. Her eyes strayed to the many cups and medallions on her glass shelves.

"There are some families that should be _left_ in history," Aberforth grumbled but relented at her disapproving stare. "Anyway, lad," he addressed Harry, "is there anything you'd like to know about the magical world? Accidental magic, Hogwarts, Hogsmeade, wands, foods, lifestyle… I can spare a bit of time."

Harry brightened and rushed to ask questions, and the only thing he regretted was the absence of a notebook where he could write it all down.

* * *

In the months that passed Harry discovered the world he belonged to. Questions rained on both Bathilda and Aberforth endlessly, every day. First of all, of course, Harry wondered about the practical application of his magic. He wanted to know whether he could improve his life by casting spells, whether he could summon food and drinks, whether he could spin clothes into existence, whether he could hurt his bullies, whether he could make people like him like they had before.

Unfortunately, Batty disappointed him.

"This is very high level magic you are talking about," she explained quietly during his next visit.

Aberforth was present again, and judging by the surprise swimming in the old woman's eyes, it wasn't a usual occurrence. Harry supposed that he interested the wizard enough for him to Floo in an extra time. Now, the old man stood by the fireplace and sipped on the cider he brought in. He didn't let Harry taste it no matter how much the boy begged him to.

"You will only be able to achieve it in a couple of years. Several years, even, in some cases. On the other hand, neither food nor drink - or any other consumable substance - can be summoned out of thin air. It is one of the long-standing major laws of magic. These laws are the pillar of magical theory."

"Are there any books written on this?"

Harry hoped they wouldn't be too complicated. He craved knowledge, but at the same time he had seen those hefty physics and biology books that older children carried, and his head was heavy just from just glancing through them! Wizarding science was bound to be just as tough as the muggle one.

"Do you like reading?" Batty asked him kindly.

Harry shrugged awkwardly.

"Sometimes," he replied vaguely. "If it's something interesting or useful, I can."

He did prefer being outside, though. Walking through the dimly-lit streets of Godric's Hollow in the evening, wandering the forest, sneaking into dilapidated buildings... all such things fascinated, thrilled him. He could spend an evening running around and unwilling to return to the orphanage.

The worlds described in books occasionally absorbed him as well, but the library at the orphanage lacked when it came to thrilling adventure or fantasy books that he preferred. He also liked stories where the main character was an orphan who prevailed against the world, persevered despite the prejudice and hatred and spite, took revenge on the bullies, became outstanding, and found his parents.

He knew the books mirrored the person he wanted to become. He also realised it was impossible for him to achieve this sort of dream.

"Then, I will find some books on the magical theory for you to read!" Batty declared. She smiled proudly. "I'm sure you're going to do very, very well. There are some tomes I have that are written for children of a pre-Hogwarts age and which are generally used by pureblood families to teach their offspring the basics before they start attending Hogwarts."

"What do muggleborns do?" Harry asked curiously. By now he had remembered the word 'muggle' and all its derivatives. "I mean, if this theory isn't covered at Hogwarts, and only purebloods and halfbloods teach it to their kids..."

"Oh, it is covered in Hogwarts," Aberforth cut in with a snort. "But, you see, purebloods like to feel they're superior, geniuses, yada, yada. So, to create this illusion, they prepare beforehand. This way the muggle-raised, when they inevitably do a little worse most of the time, are led to believe that they are naturally worse at it than those raised in the Wizarding World, when in reality it's bollocks."

"Well, no one prevents muggleborns from working extra when they want to gain knowledge of the magical world," Batty said. "So, this difference vanishes after a short while. There are cases when a muggleborn is actually stronger and more knowledgeable than a pureblood. So, work hard, my dear, and think nothing of it if a pureblood or halfblood tells you you're worth less than them."

"I'll try," Harry replied with a nod. In his opinion, it would be quite the challenge to pretend it didn't hurt if a person belonging to the world he longed for started hurling insults, but he was used to being the outcast. "Anyway... is magical theory hard?"

"Depends. In those books I'll give you, it'll be explained in a really simple language. They're for children around 5-11 years old, after all." She clapped a hand on her knee. "Oh, and they are also for children who don't go to Hogwarts at all."

"I've thought that everyone wanted to go to Hogwarts."

"Everyone wants, but not everyone can," Aberforth explained. "There are families that prefer to homeschool their children. Then, there are also children who have some very strong talent and they seek a master to be apprenticed to. There are families that travel around, families that decide to send their children to another school, perhaps even on another continent, families where children apply for courses they are interested in and shed the branches of magic they are not interested in, families where a child doesn't have the magical capacity to attend a school like Hogwarts... Many scenarios can happen."

"I've read about this masters and apprentices thing in a book," Harry mused. "Sounds like a fantasy story."

"Believe me, half of the apprentices don't live a fantasy story at all, lad," Aberforth said curtly. "Many professions are tricky, and the risks are higher than when you work as a muggle."

"Really? Like what?"

"Well, if you're apprenticed to an Apothecary or a Potioneer, any wrong way to prepare an ingredient may cause an explosion and kill you. If you work as a warder, you may trigger the wrong rune sequence and bring on yourself a deadly curse. If your job is connected with rituals, a single squiggly line may wipe you from the face of the earth."

The beauty of the magical world was the beauty of a very thorny rose, it seemed.

* * *

Sometimes, they asked him about the family that Harry had never had.

"I was just found there with a blanket and that's all," he found himself telling Batty reluctantly one day. Aberforth hovered silently by the fireside. Harry didn't always know whether the man even listened to him or not.

"This is a good thing you were dropped here of all places," Batty told him gently.

She was writing yet another book - this one about the history of the Druidic community in Britain - and Harry didn't understand a word of it. He wondered why the woman who could explain everything perfectly in clear terms and using comprehensible images would suddenly choose to write in such a funny, unnaturally complicated language, but then realised that maybe it was another part of what adults did: pretend they were so clever with just words.

"I would have preferred not to be dropped at all," he muttered, drawing his knees closer to himself. He shrugged. "But it doesn't matter much. I'm used to living in the orphanage."

"Do they ever hurt you there?" Aberforth asked. The man's eyes traced Harry's features with an emotion he couldn't name.

Harry shook his head slowly.

"No. It's not- not what you think. I think. Actually, when I was a child, I used to be very popular, because even when my magic acted up, no one thought it was strange. Miracles are easy to believe in when you're a child. That's what Mrs Rickety says."

"Of course, you've all grown up, then."

The boy ignored the sarcasm lacing the old man's voice.

"Yeah," Harry said and repressed a wistful smile. "In more ways than one."

"Well, dear, you say you are used to the orphanage by now, but surely you are prepared that you may leave it one day?" Batty asked him. She abandoned her quill and rubbed her temples, waiting for Harry's answer with an inquisitive look. "I am certain there are families wishing to adopt such a sweet, pretty child."

Now Harry repressed a blush.

"All those families that might be interested are eventually warned away. Also, if you haven't noticed, Mrs Bagshot, this village isn't exactly very popular with visitors."

"Indeed. There are charms around it, as with any other village populated by magical folks, that prevents muggles from strolling inside without any real purpose, which is most often to visit family. Otherwise, only the people who have grown up here can roam freely."

"Really?" Harry breathed. "I didn't know that magic could do this!"

"There is a wide variety of muggle-repelling wards. You will be taught in detail at Hogwarts during your Charms class - and perhaps Ancient Runes and Arithmancy classes, if you choose them as electives eventually."

"I wish I could go to Hogwarts already." Harry watched the flames dancing in the fireplace.

"Time flies. Returning to the subject at hand, provided that a family willing to adopt you turns up, would you-"

"I'd still like to stay here," Harry interrupted, heart beating fast. His mind turned over the list of people he had ever disappointed by not being who they wanted him to be, He didn't want to add other names to the list. "They- they probably would change their minds someday."

"Do you truly believe that no family will ever accept you as its son, dearie? Then, think of such no more, I assure you-"

"No. It's… It's just that I'm not sure I can _be_ a good son."

* * *

Most of the time, they talked about magic.

At first, when Aberforth had time, Harry begged him to show something real, a type of powerful magic shown in books, summoning an earthquake or enslaving people with the force of mind. The old man, just like old Batty, turned down his pleas.

"The magic you're asking me to show you," the wizard told him one evening, this time when they were sitting in the garden under the shade of a few oakes Batty had planted and made grow overnight, "is a serious matter. Nothing lil' boys like you should be trifling with."

"It won't be _me_ trifling, after all, you will be the one casting it," Harry replied cleverly. He had barely noticed how comfortable talking, even arguing with the witch and the wizard was becoming

Aberforth barked in laughter.

"Cheeky little thing," he allowed. "Be that as it may, you have to stay satisfied with the displays of average, household magic for now, especially keeping in mind that we're in a muggle-infested area. You don't want to explain to the Ministry why you're casting flashy spells in such a place."

Harry caught the disdain in Aberforth's voice. He swallowed.

"You told me I can't do magic without a wand," Harry changed the topic and peered at Aberforth through his fringe questioningly. "But I thought about it, you know. I thought about it and it hit me that all these years I've been using my magic - and I had never even heard what a wand was!"

"Accidental magic." Aberforth shot him one of those indecipherable glances again. "Quite powerful in your case, lad. But the problem with accidental magic is that as you grow older, it becomes harder to use it. Impossible by the time you have reached magical adulthood, even when you experience strong emotions."

Images of accidental magic happening to him flooded Harry's mind. Raising an army of dead flies. Making all the toys in the nursery jump to Harry's room. Play out small scenes with dolls and plushies that talked and acted all on their own, as if guided by the strings of an invisible puppeteer, and that puppeteer had been Harry's will.

Nothing at all like the meagre displays his magic allowed him now.

"You can't really practise until you get your wand," the old man said calmly, reaching to lay a hand on Harry's mop of black hair ruffled by the wind. "But there are a few tricks to prepare you for Hogwarts and make the learning process, once it starts, run much smoother. Leave you some time for mischief." His wrinkled face shifted into a grin. "These tricks are not all widely known to muggleborns."

"There are few things that are widely known to muggleborns. I'm happy I have you and Mrs Bagshot to explain it to me. Those guides are rubbish."

"They certainly withhold some information. For instance, the idea that the magical core can be stretched."

"What does it mean?"

"Getting less tired when casting spells, magical endurance, more long-lasting effects, more powerful incantations - a well-stretched core can give you all of that. Some people are born with a larger core than others, especially when it comes to those who possess special talents, or bloodline abilities, as they are sometimes called."

"I've read about them. Melomagic, or the magic of the song; Natural Occ- Ocl-"

"Natural Occlumency," Aberforth helped. He nodded. "Indeed, these are inborn talents whose presence enlarges the core. Again, practising them every day is key - it works like a muscle. A lot of muggleborns get dissatisfied if they cannot get the same results as a pureblood, decide that they're naturally weaker, and give up the subject altogether."

"It's silly, to give up like this."

Harry would have given up his life by now if he used such logic.

"It is. Now, another way to stretch your core would be to summon bursts of accidental magic while you are still a child. The result doesn't matter - even if whatever you're wishing for doesn't happen, as is usually the case, even trying already provides exercise for your magic."

"I'm already doing this," Harry boasted and smothered a smile. "Also, Mrs Bagshot told me I could kill two birds with one stone and practise wand motions at the same time. She gave me some books - some are awfully hard to read, by the way - where there are charms and wand movements, and I try to do them. I've found a stick in the yard and peeled the bark off to wave it and get used to wielding a wand."

"Impressive little boy, you are!" Aberforth clapped Harry on the shoulder, and the boy cringed at the force of it. "But do you know what the appearance of accidental magic depends on?"

"Emotion. Strong emotion, the books say."

"True. So, here's a tip: when you're experimenting with your stick, try to concentrate on different emotions at a time and discover what really works for you. Depending on the person, certain emotions fill you with magic faster than others. For me, it's anger. For some, it's strong love. Or hatred. Or vengeance. Or compassion. You will have to try and see. It will be helpful later in life, too, because a lot of powerful spells require the user to feel emotions, a special type of emotion - of course, I'm not talking about the Unforgivables here. Not trying to give you illegal ideas."

Harry perked up at 'illegal ideas' and 'Unforgivables', and almost cursed the man for withholding the most interesting part. Still, there was enough food for thought in his little lecture.

"So," he began. "When you're an adult, you can't use your magic at all without a wand? That's disappointing. It's like a wizard only is a wizard if he has a wand."

"The focus of your magic can be different - some use staffs, bracelets, knives, rings, diadems, stones... The wand is in vogue because it's among the most precise foci and easily customised. As for casting magic without a wand, there is always wandless magic."

"What's different in it from accidental magic?"

"The level of control. With accidental magic, you can never be sure of the effects, because it is driven by the heart rather than the mind. You cannot control the outcome of your outburst. There are many cases when it harms the one who evokes it instead of helping. Wandless magic, on the other hand, is all about control. The caster must _know_ what they're doing for it to work. They have to know both the wand movement and the incantation and go through both in their mind."

* * *

Harry had never suspected the wealth of information hiding just beyond the mundane.

He continuously, almost desperately prodded both Aberforth and Bathilda for ways to circumvent the 'no wand before eleven years old' rule, especially since other orphans side-eyed and taunted him more, sensing his happiness, yearning to squash it, all lead by Ben Jonathan, ever Harry's biggest enemy.

Aberforth batted away his prodding at first.

Once, he glimpsed a bruise on Harry's arm. He relented.

Of course, nothing but a special permission from the Ministry of Magic allowed children to acquire wands before they reached either Hogwarts age (or that of another school) or enrolled into apprenticeships. Yet even with that permission, casting magic at a young age dented their core. Could drain their bodies.

When Harry sensibly rebutted that, hey, he had been doing a lot of magic before, Aberforth pointed out, "You've answered your question yourself already, lad. Think. In your childhood, whenever something sparked strong emotions within you, stuff burnt, vases shattered, neighbours' flowers wilted, water swirled in the air... Can you do the same now?"

Harry shook his head, sullen.

"Thought so." Old people had no business being smug, Harry believed. "I bet you won't even crack this teacup now - no matter how hideously painted this thing is," Aberforth muttered and threw a disgusted look at a gaudy orange teacup he held with two fingers. "Now, your magic - and your psyche, hopefully - is developing. Meaning, it needs clear directions, purpose, goals... Spells provide all that. Without 'em... You can't throw a tantrum and hope it works magic anymore."

And so Harry found out that he was becoming too mature for his own good, for summoning accidental magic.

He didn't despair. Yet another conversation, this time with Batty, revealed that magical folks outwitted the natural laws of magic channels, cores, and depletion in many ways.

She reiterated Aberforth's words that a core could be stretched. Even showed him _how_ to summon outbursts of accidental magic, how to test which emotions filled him with magic faster, which emotions conveyed the most strength, and Harry laboured in all his spare time he didn't already spend absorbing history or tracing wand movements with an alder stick. A piece of plaster falling on the head of the girl calling him abnormal - _hateful, angry_ \- a stuffed hare, faded pink, one eye missing, hugging him on a starless, sleepless night - _lonely, sad_ \- aspen leaves turning purple, red, blue, all the colours of the rainbow - _happy, glad_...

There was often no effect at all.

Harry didn't give up.

(And, just as expected, anger got the best results of all.)

Aside from that, magicals also crafted gimmicks that facilitated the life of a common witch. Apart from the 'all-purpose' wand, as Aberforth sometimes called the wand one received on their eleventh birthday, there were wands charged with a limited number of spells which could be cast with no verbal incantation and even no physical movement, functioning with the power of thought. They were usually used by people practising enchantment-connected crafts. Makers of amulets and talismans, weavers of permanent charms, potions-makers, gem-whisperers... They engraved runes upon the objects of their enchantment and had to cast a set of the same complex spells. A charged wand moved the process along.

Obviously, enchanted objects existed as well. They were sold freely, unless one counted ancient artefacts. Such things as self-washing dishes, or warmth-regulating clothes, or feather-light trunks could be used even by children and Squibs ("And by muggles, of course, but imagine how egregious _that_ would be!" Batty cried out and swept her teacup off the table accidentally.

There were also training wands, a bit costly but very useful as a pre-Hogwarts preparation. Without strong magical cores, limited only to the easiest spells, they were not registered by the Ministry. Hence the cost and the difficulty to find them. Muggleborns didn't know about those wands, though, and the existence of such wasn't mentioned in the guides for muggleborns to the magical world.

Harry thanked fortune for the presence of Batty and Aberforth to guide him along.

* * *

A year passed.

Harry received a lot of knowledge. Learnt lessons. Some of them, he learnt at the orphanage. Those were sad lessons, lessons about life and people, emotions and manipulation, dislike and disgust, hiding things and waging rumours.

Then, there were lessons with Bathilda, who told him about the history of the magical community, weaved her words into epic tales of glory and despair, construction and destruction - everything the human race abounded in even with supernatural abilities. At first, she had given him books. Soon, she abandoned that endeavour: Harry didn't focus well, his reading speed wasn't particularly fast, and he derived little enjoyment from the dry style of most historians, or endless tables of dates, or the sheer amount of words he had to look up in the dictionary.

So, she crafted stories instead. She would sit him by the fire that crackled even in the heat of summer, give him snacks Crippy baked, make him tea - each time a different flavour - and talk.

Her voice changed when she spoke. No longer as high-pitched, it caressed his hearing and pulled him into the visions of battles, building, and community living. Starting with the first known magical community, that of Sumeria, the old woman had led him through the lives of prominent wizards and witches of Assyria, Babylonia, Egypt... all the way until the Roman community, which they were due to start in a week or so.

Harry enjoyed the lessons of human nature he received with orphans, and the lessons of human mistakes he received with Batty, but perhaps the most valuable of them all were the lessons in humanity he received from Aberforth.

The first time it happened, Harry was in pain.

"They hurt you? Show me!" Aberforth growled, and the protectiveness in his voice stumped Harry to the point where he revealed the burns from a lighter on his skin.

For the first time such an expression was there for _him_.

Harry's ears coloured at the next few words that tore from the old wizard's lips. Batty looked on the verge of casting a mouth-cleaning charm, and she was saying something- but Harry only eyed Aberforth. Aberforth, who raged on his behalf. Aberforth, who vanished the burns with a few swishes of his wand. Aberforth, who now sat on his haunches and wiped the tears Harry hadn't known flowed.

How funny. Harry had never cried in the rare cases when things escalated into a scuffle between him and other children, but now, experiencing kindness, he wept.

"It's nothing," he told the old wizard shakily. "We quarrelled over who gets to play with the ball."

He didn't care about the stupid ball. Harry had just wanted to be included once again. Just like in his childhood. Just like now, with Bathilda, and Aberforth, and Gellert the animated quilt, and the house elf Crippy watching from the sidelines.

Anger clouded Aberforth's face, and the old man, snarling, shook his fist in the air. His glasses gleamed in the fairylights Batty had conjured to illuminate the garden, reflecting light, shielding his eyes from view.

"I'll show 'em a ball! I'll turn those poor excuses they have into brains for balls! Better yet, I'll play Quidditch with _their_ balls instead!"

The declaration startled a laugh out of Harry. Protective on his behalf. Passionate. He... hadn't met people who would stand up for him like that for a while. Just as he moved to wipe the embarrassing tear on his cheeks, which he pretended he never spilt, a handkerchief popped into existence in his hand. Batty winked at him and put her wand away.

"One of them was a girl," Harry pointed out, voice muffled as he wiped his eyes, then nose.

"I can think of something, lad," Aberforth grunted. Nevertheless, some of the fervor left him. He put down his hand. When he took off his glasses to wipe them by flicking his wand, Harry saw that anger bubbled under the surface, barely contained. "Magic must be good for something."

"The Statue of Secrecy, dearie. Wouldn't it pose any trouble?"

"No. There should be at least _one_ advantage to having a brother who is Chief of Wizengamot - you know, of course, how much I think he deserves it."

"I know," Harry interrupted. "That's why I think that you won't beg him for help." The boy paused and peered up at Aberforth's face wrinkled with age and sorrows. "You shouldn't go to the brothers you don't like on my behalf."

"Harry. You're a precious child."

The boy squeezed out a smile. A true one.

"This, I know, too."

* * *

Aberforth's moods grew strange afterwards. As if he was seeing Harry in a new light, but the boy couldn't decipher which one. Couldn't fathom the reason. Batty could. She only laughed whenever he brought it up, however, and, eventually, Harry acted as always: he ignored it. If Aberforth wanted to be weird, Harry wouldn't stop him.

The ways in which that weirdness showed?

* * *

Harry drew his knees to his chest, his favourite position in that rocking chair with squashy embroidered pillows, as he listened to Batty.

"...now, dear, we are finally starting on the Druidic magical community. Although spell-wise the British were heavily influenced by Roman magic-wielders - hence the abundance of Latin-based incantations - when it comes to holidays, etiquette, and traditions, it is the Druids who founded our community. I know you have been waiting most eagerly-"

"If you're interested," Aberforth cut in from his seat farther away, so close to the fireplace Harry wondered how he wasn't catching fire, "I have a book on the Celtic community at home. My home, I mean- at the pub."

The old man rubbed the back of his neck, and Harry blinked.

"Miss Bagshot has a lot of books, too," he pointed out and twitched his chin towards the overflowing shelves and messy columns of tomes on the floor and on several tiny tables of different styles and materials. "But you can bring it here?"

"No, that's not-" Aberforth clicked his mouth shut, then glowered, then shot the historian a helpless look. Batty, stifling a giggle, coughed. Harry didn't understand. "Nevermind. Continue your lesson."

They did.

Aberforth stayed silent for the remainder of the evening, until Harry scurried to the orphanage, and the boy couldn't conceive a single reason for his attitude.

* * *

"You know, it's all right for children to work in the wizarding world," Aberforth told him when they were at the graveyard, on a rare day when sunlight actually broke through the shadows cast by trees, the gloom, the mourning, and shone on the memorial stones of Ariana and Kendra Dumbledore.

Harry shrugged. "Nice to know. There are no jobs for magical un-schooled children who don't even have a wand around here, though. And I will be busy with studying at Hogwarts once I go there, and when I graduate, I'll have to find a job anyway - and I'll be of age then, no?"

"Don't overdo it with the studying," Aberforth lectured. His lips pressed into a tight line even as he clapped Harry awkwardly on the shoulder. He always disapproved of Harry reading too much or studying too much, and the thought that maybe he really disliked bookworms flickered in Harry's mind. "You miss my point when you do,"

"And what _was_ the point?"

"I have a pub. Children can work even in pubs, in my world- ours, I mean- there are no laws prohibiting it."

"So, the magical world is a bit like something out of Charles Dickens' works," Harry said and mentally patted himself on the back for how educated that sounded. They read Charles Dickens in the orphanage. He liked his books about orphans. "Why does it matter?"

"You still don't-" Aberforth stopped, and growled, and snapped his mouth shut, and stared at Harry almost... plaintively. Begging him to understand.

Tough luck. Harry didn't get it.

"Don't you want to work in a pub?" the old man asked at last.

Harry looked at him dubiously.

* * *

"Is there a child trafficking ring or something in the magical world?" Harry asked Batty on a sunny wintry afternoon, a troubled frown on his face. "If there is, I think Mr Dumbledore wants to sell me there."

Batty burst into a fit of giggles.

"Oh, you are such a sweet young thing!" she cried. A snowflake danced into her mouth, and the old woman sneezed. Harry inched away. "No, I dare say that Aberforth was implying that he owns a pub-"

"I already know that. Did he want to brag?"

"-and he wants you to work there."

"Oh! Oh." Harry blinked rapidly and shook his head, his eyelashes almost white from the snowflakes clinging to them until Batty kindly brushed them off with a wand wave.

The old woman cast a snow-cleaning charm on a wooden bench and dropped into it, eye-level with the child.

"Would you like that?"

Harry's eyebrows furrowed.

"I'm a bit confused. From what you've said, his pub is in Hogsmeade - isn't it in Scotland of all places? - and I'm, well, here. Does he expect me to, ugh, commute every day? Work while I'm at Hogwarts, after classes? Besides, even if he wants, um, cheap labour, aren't there enough children to take on in Hogsmeade?"

Batty wheezed a laugh again.

"You are misconstruing something," she told him in the gentle voice she used when Harry mixed up the dates and events of the history she taught.

"Yes, you keep saying-"

"-and I _should_ clear up the whole situation to you... but it is simply too entertaining to watch you fumble over words, and I am too bored on a daily basis, I'm afraid. Right, Gellert?"

The animated quilt on her shoulders raised a corner and dropped it quickly, as if nodding, and Harry sulked.

"So, you know everything, but you won't tell?"

"Indeed, dearie."

Just typical that one of the two people to genuinely like him would be a sadistic old witch.

* * *

Fumble they both did.

Aberforth brought up the topic of the pub and child labour so much that, to Harry, it almost sounded like the man tried to sell the place to him and urge Harry to become some sort of child trafficking ring leader. Or at least employ a bunch of other children just because he could. And the old man always flushed and grumbled when Harry asked for clarifications, while Batty watched from the sidelines and cackled. To her, being a sadistic old lady had its perks.

She kept other things secret, too, apart from Aberforth's intentions. At times, an acquaintance of hers popped in, and she locked Harry up 'for his own good' and didn't even leave a keyhole to eavesdrop. She concealed those people from Aberforth as well.

Also, she sent him to the graveyard often, but not so much as hinted what he was supposed to find there - except for irritation and impatience. "When you grow up," she repeated.

Harry loathed the words.

Not even spying and eavesdropping yielded a solution to the last two mysteries, but Harry could solve the first one.

So, he acted.

* * *

"I want to adopt you," Aberforth confessed after hours and hours of interrogation.

Harry... gaped.

If there was any sudden stinging behind his eyelids, well, it's not like he noticed.

"What... do you mean?" he asked softly, his voice barely above the sound of thieves sneaking in the night.

Sighing, the old man rubbed his face. "I need some help around the pub, not only with washing the glasses, or mopping, or whatever you've been contriving this whole time - Argus takes care of that for now - but on the whole. I need someone to inherit the damn place. I need someone who understands its importance. Its purpose."

Harry didn't know what purpose there was to a pub other than providing drinks for people, but such thoughts fled his mind.

"I've never even _been_ to a pub before. I know nothing about them."

"You hadn't even heard of our world a year ago, and now you know the bedrock of its history better than half the bloody Wizengamot bastards."

Harry had concluded long ago that the only people Aberforth seemed to dislike even more than his brother - about whom the boy heard more from Batty - were the Ministry folks.

"Not to mention," the old man continued, "that if I adopt you, it's not like I'm going to throw you to the wolves right away and plunge you into the whole pub-managing business. I'm planning to hold out for at least a couple of decades more, lad. Oh no, you'll get plenty of free time." With a knowing gleam, Aberforth added, "And pocket money every week."

It was a low blow, to bring up money, Harry thought.

"This is starting to sound interesting," he said, peering up at the pub-keeper's face thoughtfully. "Why were you so confusing about the whole thing?"

"It was damn embarrassing, that's why!" Aberforth exclaimed, cheeks flushed below the rim of his thick glasses. "You think I'm going 'round asking orphans if they'd like to be my sons every day? What if you told me something along the lines of 'hell no, I'd rather go live with a colony of spiders'? Besides-" His voice softened. "-I sometimes have no idea whether you even _like_ me. Sometimes, I can't sense what you're thinking, what you're feeling."

Harry flinched and fidgeted.

He didn't regret the way he was. Not when some people felt the need to wipe away his smile if he showed it. So, he didn't. A blank face armed him better than insults and fistfighting on the playground.

"You shouldn't; it's... I _make_ it so you don't."

"Yeah, and it's sad." Aberforth shook his head and put his hands on Harry's shoulders, forcing direct eye contact. "Makes me sad as hell to think about the circumstances that made you this way. You're a kid. You shouldn't conceal yourself like that. Once, I knew a person whose childhood was ripped away from her-"

He choked up. Words stopped flowing.

"Ariana?" Harry asked, realising that there was one person who could make the proud old man look like that.

"Ariana."

The blue in Aberforth's eyes darkened, a sunny day chased away by clouds, and Harry saw a story there but couldn't read it. He didn't ask. Just like books, life stories were not all meant to be read.

Harry hid stories, too. Perhaps they were not painted in whip strokes across his back or written in curse words on his skin, but they dwelt in his heart, occupied his memories, and spawned his nightmares.

"I'll think about coming to live with you."

The fast beating of his heart sang the answer in his ears.

* * *

He studied the place where he had spent at least eight years of his life, the peeling paintwork of the walls, the gaudily coloured swings, the ground covered with weeds, the curtained windows.

It mattered less than at any point before. Had faded into the background of his life.

Harry committed the sight of it to memory the way one would with the body of an unlikable relative on a funeral before the coffin was lowered to the ground.

So, once he retrieved his possessions, he didn't turn around.

* * *

Aberforth's grin was boyish, and happy, and rivalled the sunlight streaming through the lacy curtains of Batty's lounge. Rivalled the merrily crackling fire that Harry, for the first time, saw not only as a source of warmth, but as a gateway to a new life.

Aberforth drew him close, and a smile played on Harry's lips, too, and a laugh burst past his lips, and his mind told him that nothing came for free and there must be a catch of some sort-

"Hog's Head!"

-but the fire blazed green, and none of the suspicions mattered.


	5. Peverell Lane

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! This chapter was supposed to be posted last week but, as I've mentioned in "From Azkaban with Love" (an epistolary fic on AO3 only for now, where Harry is a cursebreaker and Voldemort in Azkaban), my baby grew so big I had to chop it up into two. Or three. Because it's still growing. And I'll be dead to the world for the next two weeks, so I figured you'd rather have a short chapter than none at all.
> 
> THANK YOU SO MUCH for all your reviews! Omg, they were so amazing and I just love you so, so much! Hope you enjoy the read, loves :)

As soon as they tumbled out of the fireplace, a blast of yellow careened in their direction. Aberforth swore and whipped out his wand, calling a shimmering patch into existence, which absorbed the spell. The shield faded.

Aberforth pulled Harry into his side. Warmth swelled in the boy's chest, even as he stood on guard and leaned down to reach his weapon, the only way he had to defend himself, a secret even from Aberforth.

"No fighting in my pub!" the old man roared. Wincing at the booming voice, Harry surveyed the fighting pair – a couple of wizards who sheepishly lowered their hands and wands. One of them sent a quick _Reparo_ to fix a crack in a stool.

"I told them, Mr Dumbledore, I told them-" a vindictive voice exclaimed, coming from the bar.

"Silence!" Aberforth increased pressure on Harry's shoulder. "You two, out."

"But-"

"Before the wards evict you."

The wizards sniffed and trudged outside. The shorter attempted to swipe a rusted candelabra but Aberforth's glower disabused him of any larcenous inclinations. The would-be thief huffed so indignantly that Harry stifled a laugh.

"Hoodlums, all of 'em," Aberforth muttered before turning his gaze to Harry. "You fine, lad?"

"What was that spell?" Harry asked after a nod.

"I'm miles away in duelling from being able to tell a spell by its colour. Only real masters can do that. It could have been something harmless."

"But you decided to raise a shield anyway." Harry screwed up his forehead and stared hard at the air as if trying to catch sight of the spell's remnants.

"You don't have to know what's coming for you to avoid it," Aberforth said with a snort. Tapping Harry on the shoulder, he swept the room with a wide gesture. "And here you finally are! This, Harry, is my home."

Harry wondered how anyone could call the taproom 'home'.

Tables of all shapes and woods littered the entire place. Some dark, some light. A scrape here, a scorch mark there. Moss and rot. Not a single table was polished. Cobwebs clung to dark corners, so many and so thick they seemed on the verge of breaking free and attacking patrons, engulfing Aberforth, and Harry, and that menacing gentleman wiping a grimy glass behind the counter. Spiders spun more webs.

Just to the side of the bar, a staircase. Gently, Aberforth's warm hand guided the boy towards it.

Harry jumped when he stepped on something soft. A dead mouse.

"Mrs Norris killed her," the sullen man called out by way of greeting to Aberforth. He pointedly ignored Harry. "Whole place's infested with 'em."

"Thank Mrs Norris for me, Argus," Harry's mentor replied. He banished the mouse towards a dark cat with protruding bones and too perceptive eyes, vanished shards of glass scattered across the floor, and repaired a step.

Harry used the moment Aberforth required to do all that to throw a glance at the people.

The few patrons fit the pub: dirty-robed, their faces concealed behind hoods or smudged by identity-distorting charms. A shape hunched in the corner didn't look human. A couple in the corner was playing a card game, several silver coins strewn across the dirty surface of the table, attracting envious regards.

Harry clutched Aberforth's sleeve when a pair of red-tinted eyes stared at him from a gaunt face of an elderly witch.

"Dark users, many of them," the old man warned him softly and led Harry by the shoulder up the stairs. "If any of them harasses you, tell me quick. You're a master of this place just as much as I am."

"They won't do anything to retaliate?"

"They could always try." The gleam in Aberforth's eyes made Harry remember the time he caught the old man "talking" to one of the boys who bullied him. "But I'm not my brother; when _I_ lay down wards, they actually protect, not just show off."

The upper floor pleasantly surprised Harry. No mice there. He inhaled a lungful of strong pear smell. There was a lounge area with a large if dirty window, traceried and incongruent with the image of the pub. A withering plant decorated a coffee table along with a cluster of mugs. An elegant young wizard was holding a cigarette holder and shooting smoke in funny animal shapes - a green elephant, a purple fox, a yellow cat, a rainbow-coloured otter... A portrait of a young girl, sunny-haired and starry-eyed, overlooked the scene.

Aberforth ignored the wizard's nod of greeting and led Harry down the hallway along a row of doors, each with a wooden plate indicating the room number. They finally got to the very end of the corridor where, side by side, there stood two unmarked doors.

Harry's heart beat fast in his ears as he approached.

"This is my room and this is yours," Aberforth said. Harry's was the last in the row, separated from the guestroom by Aberforth's chambers. "It's not much, nothing fancy like those suites in mansions, but better than the orphanage, eh?"

The boy gulped down emotion and nodded timidly. The shadows from the old man's hands, cast on the stone walls, trembled slightly.

_He probably is as insecure as I am_ , a thought crept into his mind. _I mean, it's not like he has children… or does he?_

For some reason, the thought that Aberforth would protect and care so much about someone that he would adopt them hurt something inside of Harry. He shook the greasy feeling off.

They entered.

The room was middle-sized. A bed stood by the wall, and a drawer nestled between it and a table that had multiple rings left by hot teacups. By the door, a huge monster of a wardrobe.

"Dragged the table up here from the bar," Aberforth told him nervously and his hand twitched to rub the back of his neck before he stopped the gesture half-way and glared at the wall. "We'll buy you something better, a proper desk, of course."

"It's fine like this," Harry assured the man. True, it wasn't queenly quarters but...

His heart still beat gratitude in his chest.

"We should discuss something," the old man told him softly. Harry acquiesced with a nod and allowed himself to be led to one of the two armchairs situated underneath metal-framed shelves.

"Your pub doesn't really seem like the one we had in Godric's Hollow," Harry started politely. He didn't think his new... he couldn't exactly call him 'father', could he? would appreciate if Harry told him the place crept him out.

Aberforth snorted, as if he read Harry's mind. "My pub has many purposes, and being welcoming isn't one of them, brat." He regained seriousness. "Nevertheless, what I'm doing is important."

"Lots of black-market people come here, don't they? Sell illegal artefacts and stuff," Harry shared his observations. He'd heard about places like that from Batty who had frequented many of them in different countries across the world in her pursuit of rare books and scrolls, of stories and experiences. He never lingered on the acts she committed in her desire to uncover true history. "Kind of like Knockturn Alley in London, only on a smaller scale."

"This is one of the functions, yeah. It's the place for any seedy dealings, any illicit games so long as all those folks don't forget to use concealing and muffling charms to hide their identity – if I see a wanted criminal walk 'round with no disguise, well, shame on 'em and I will have to report them. I'm not going to attract the Ministry's wrath by housing felons that walk about in the open."

He stressed the word 'open'.

"And when they have the decency to disguise themselves, you just let them in?"

Aberforth shrugged. "Depending on the witch or wizard, of course. If their crime is just practising the kind of magic the Ministry looks down on... it's not like I'm a powerful wizard who can see through camouflage, right?"

The old man winked and Harry stifled a chuckle.

The boy had been sneaking about abandoned buildings for a while, he definitely couldn't criticise.

"I also rent out rooms, as you've noticed. Both for a night or any extended period of time and for an hour."

"Why would anyone want a room for an hour?" Harry cocked his head. Such a waste of money.

Aberforth, unexpectedly, blushed. "No reason you should concern yourself with yet," he explained hastily before clearing his throat. "And, er, oh, of course, some people are still wary despite the privacy charms on the tables and want additional security, so they ask for a room and conduct their private business here."

"But aren't their precautions kind of useless anyway? After all, as the owner and the one in charge of placing the privacy wards on the rooms, you can as easily dispel them with those people being none the wiser..."

"And this _is_ what I'm doing most of the time," Aberforth shamelessly admitted to spying on his customers. Harry definitely didn't blame him; he wouldn't have wanted any useful information to slip by either. "But see, they're not dumb, these people. They cast their own privacy charms, and sometimes they can override my eavesdropping ones. And that's not even taking into account numerous artefacts."

"The hereditary objects passed down in old families?"

"Yes. These are immensely powerful and can often overthrow even a Lord- or Lady-level spell. And people often underestimate modern inventions, but they exist, too, and they're strong." Aberforth shook his head. "If there is one thing you should learn from me, Harry, it's to never undermine the importance of science in the magical world, and inventiveness. Wizards and witches invent and discover as much as muggles, albeit we're also more wary of publishing our knowledge, what's with all the Ministry regulations that change arbitrarily."

"But isn't there some place where the info can be stored? Batty told me about family grimoires. She mostly spoke about historical anecdotes told in them, but she also mentioned that they contain quite a number of potions recipes, runic formulae, and spells..."

"Yes, but the access to them is vastly limited. Many grimoires are charmed in such a way that only a descendant can open them. Sometimes they're fully closed to any person who doesn't have the right blood, and sometimes, more often - because lines often die out and they would rather have at least some memory of themselves left in this world - the access is simply restricted to specific passages." Aberforth shook his head. "Other than grimoires, we have specialised journals. And Unspeakable Archives. These are the most trustworthy sources of all – but the access is even more extraordinarily limited. Not even the Ministry or most of the Unspeakables are allowed. Most people don't even know where they are situated."

A pause. Harry reflected on all that he had been told - the possibility that he would meet people in hiding and wanted criminals, shady people, the Archives and Aberforth's strange warning...

"What do you expect of me?" he asked in a small voice.

One piece of knowledge shone crystal clear: nothing came for free.

Aberforth hummed and placed a reassuring hand on the boy's shoulder.

"Relax for now. In a few years, I will start explaining bookkeeping and the like to you, but for now I want you to assimilate and enjoy childhood. Merlin knows you've had too little of it anyway."

"But I want to help you!" Harry protested. He wouldn't be a freeloader or a charity case. It wouldn't have mattered if it had been anyone else, a stranger, a person he didn't much care about. But with Aberforth... He respected and liked the old man too much to be a burden.

"Oh, I've never said that I won't find any occupation for you!" Aberforth chortled. "From Monday to Friday, from eight in the morning until twelve in the afternoon, you will be here in the bar, learning. I'll always be here to supervise you, of course."

Harry nodded wisely.

"Afterwards, until three, I may ask you to help me out with some errands. Deliver a firewhiskey bottle – no drinking the stuff! – order some potions at the Apothecary… this type of things. If you're willing, you could also run errands for others."

"Others?"

"People who need help. Don't worry, I won't send you out to do something beyond your capacities – it will be something like help with cleaning or sorting out a shipment... Just remember: you're never forced into anything. If you don't want to do it, you won't," Aberforth said and emphasised his words by gently putting his large palms on Harry's shoulders. The boy rewarded him with a tiny smile.

"Right. Hogsmeade… isn't a rich village. The only businesses that get money all year round are Zonko's, Honeydukes, and Three Broomsticks. Diagon Alley gets much more business than this. So, we prefer to barter. Sometimes with favours, sometimes with goods."

"Is this whole process somehow…" Harry stopped for a moment to dig around in his memory for the right word. "…supervised? I mean, surely there must be a mayor or someone else to control all those favours. And other stuff, come to think of it."

"Well, as with the entirety of magical Britain, Ministry rules apply here." Aberforth's teeth clucked loudly. "Aside from that, we have the Council and the Head to govern on a smaller scale. Most of the problems are sorted out by the Head, others are just there to gather and look pretty."

"And who's the Head?"

Somehow, Harry had an inkling before Aberforth opened his mouth to reply.

"Why, me, of course. Who else would it be, lad?"

Harry dubiously eyed the man's sullied robes, purple and green stripes so dark he barely discerned them.

Aberforth grunted in annoyance.

"I see this look you're giving! Is this a way to treat an adult?"

"Why not? It's not like you have to treat adults in a special way."

"Of course you do. Respect is what it's called."

Harry respectfully lowered his gaze and stared at the small carpet under his feet without saying a word. He even had the decency to not laugh.

He had tried treating the caregivers with respect but they hadn't given him much care despite that.

_I'm done admiring people just because of their age._

Harry shook off the thoughts of pain and broken trust.

"You're not the worst person to run errands for, I think," the boy admitted after a moment of reflection instead, during which he scrutinised a few bizarre details he hadn't noticed about the room at first.

Aberforth ruffled his hair. "You always offer such sparkling and inspiring compliments! Now, I believe it's quite late. Time for you to go to bed."

_It's silly. He knows better than anyone that I've never had a good relationship with curfews._

For him, the world of Godric's Hollow only came _alive_ at twilight. When he crept through the silent paths between forgotten homes, when he listened to the cheering carried by the wind from the pub, when moonlight caressed his face, and his eyes scanned the fences for holes to sneak into.

Harry wondered if Aberforth would try to restrain his freedom now. He wasn't much of an expert on families, but, well, didn't parents prevent their children from wandering at night and getting into other people's houses?

_If he ever does that, I guess I'll have to remind him we're not a real family after all._

_It's not like it would hurt him._

His mind made up, Harry nodded, fully expecting the man to rush out of his new room.

(New room! Only for himself, without several other boys to snore, and chit-chat, and play pranks on him!)

Nervertheless, Aberforth... didn't move.

"Um, what are you waiting for?"

The old man took a deep breath.

"Look," he started, raising his hands into the air. "I promise I didn't make it up. The thing is, the book I was reading - yes, I _can_ read books, don't make such big eyes, you runt! - spoke clearly that I should tuck you in and cradle you for a first couple nights to instil a bond of trust-"

Harry burst out laughing.

"Are you sure you read that right? Maybe it was a book on baby care?"

A blush reddened the old man's cheeks, and his eyes narrowed into slits. "Fine! No tucking in for you! And my singing is atrocious anyway, so I'll just forget the lullaby I wanted to sing!"

A pang of guilt, and Harry clutched the old man's hand.

"I didn't really mean to laugh at you." Well, he had, but he could lie when it was for a good cause, right? "I'd like to hear it. Please? Even the tucking in bit is okay," he said quickly, wanting the hard part to be over with.

Because, indeed, the wish for these things lingered in his heart, simmered in a slow fire. And perhaps Aberforth read the truth in his green eyes, because the old man, the blush still intact, sighed and nodded.

"Your bathroom is here," he pointed to a small door, hidden from the entrance by the intimidating wardrobe that fit Harry's height nicely but barely accommodated Aberforth's. A few squiggly lines that Harry thought were supposed to be decorations were painted on it. "I, um, tried to liven it up. Red is a good colour for a young wizard, no? Except that- Look, here, I'll wipe it off-"

Harry stopped the man from brandishing his wand and vanishing the squiggly whorls.

"No, no, let them stay. They are... pretty."

They were the ugliest drawings in his life.

Harry tried to make his eyes very honest, like he had done it the few times a stray villager caught him breaking and entering.

"Fine. But if you bring a friend here to laugh over it together..."

Harry slipped into the bathroom to avoid a small lecture.

It hit him.

Friends. Here, he wasn't a freak anymore. Here, he could have actual friends.

And perhaps he could never give out trust for free, like he had in his early childhood. And perhaps he would always be a little wary of people. And perhaps he would forget about his resolutions the next day, and trusting would be as hard as ever...

But for now, the realisation lit up his future life.

As promised, that night, Aberforth tucked him in, and sung a lullaby (totally off-key), and Harry slept even through a nightmare.

* * *

The next day greeted him with a burst of sunlight through the window. Harry wondered why a morning at the orphanage in Godric's Hollow, concealed as it was beneath tree crowns, was so sunny and cheerful.

Then, of course, he remembered.

The door creaked. Harry recoiled, and his mind jumped to the knife he had snuck out of the orphanage kitchen, just in case - he was magical, yes, but he didn't have any means of protecting himself outside of accidental magic for now, and it wasn't a tool to be trusted, and he knew enough of the dangers inhabiting the magical world from his year of education-

He relaxed. Aberforth's smiling face beamed at him from the doorstep.

"It's almost eleven already! Wake up and shine, lad!"

_Wasn't it the sun that's supposed to be shining?_

Then it hit him.

Eleven o'clock.

"Really?" Harry yelped. "I've never-"

"Oh, I don't mind. According to my book, your oversleeping shows that you trust me enough to fall asleep so deeply here," Aberforth boasted, ambling into the room. Harry had never noticed his blue eyes gleam so much. Perhaps the gloom cloaking Godric's Hollow had dimmed them, or the grief – the man always visited the cemetery, not a place to strike good mood in someone.

"You flatter yourself. And throw that book out! I promise I'll tell you when you're doing something wrong."

"Its purpose is to make it so I always do everything right."

Harry thought that it would be ridiculous, but kept silent. He guessed that Aberforth just wanted to make everything perfect for him and even felt a bit guilty for not appreciating the effort the man was pouring in.

"Any plans for today?" he asked. His stomach growled.

"First, we'll have some breakfast. A friend of mine opened a bakery in the centre and trust me, lad, it's a safer choice than what I have in the pub." Aberforth opened the wardrobe, almost empty, and rummaged around.

"I pity the people who come here to have a drink and a snack. You don't care about them at all."

The old man shrugged. "They don't care a whit about me either. And I'm not Albus, being a selfless altruist isn't my line. Besides, good food isn't what they come here for."

Harry shook his head in disapproval.

"Yeah, so you say. They come here for information, deals, yada, yada… But it's not like you can't plan to poison politicians and have a nice glass of wine at the same time."

Not that Harry would recognise whether the wine was nice. In the orphanage, some children drank. Some smoked. Neither attracted _him_ , however.

"They don't like it, let 'em bring their own," Aberforth said firmly. He pulled out a set of open robes, spread them on the bed, and cast a shrinking charm. Harry traced the motions of the wand with his eyes. Greed burst in his chest.

"We'll drop by Emmeline's, too," the old man continued once the charm finished its work. "I have a bunch of stuff waiting 'round in the cellar. We're bound to find some decent everyday robes for you, they'll be as good as new once I transfigure them – never was as good as Albus, but passable when I concentrate. Still, I'd like you to have some things to call your own." He cast a glance at Harry. "It's not like you've ever had that before, right?"

Harry couldn't contain a smile. Most of the orphanage clothing, while decent enough, had come from donations and charities, and sometimes the sizes were too small or too big, and other times a spot dirtied the fabric.

"Thank you," he said softly.

_I wonder how many times I'll have to thank him. And whether he'll ever have reasons to thank me._

Harry almost widened his eyes. He wanted Aberforth to thank him. It was strange, silly, naïve. But he wanted the old man – and Bathilda, too – feel that gratitude, that lightness that settled in him even before the adoption.

In the orphanage, he had only wanted to take.

He wondered if any capacity for giving remained in him.

"I'd like to get you acquainted with some of the people you'll be running errands for if you wish,"Aberforth offered. He sat by Harry's side – the boy just didn't want to leave the soft covers that smelt of lavender soap – and gently massaged his charge's scalp.

Harry perked up.

"You told me it's often a favour for a favour," the boy said. "So, if I want them to teach me something in return for whatever I do for them, will they agree?"

Aberforth frowned. "If there's anything you want to know, you can always ask me, Harry. Or Bathilda. Although… well, you know I don't approve of her telling you things that you're too young to know."

"Her stories are amazing."

"And bloody, sometimes."

"That's the most amazing part," Harry quipped. He lied. Aberforth laughed and let the matter drop.

A smile of relief bloomed on the boy's face.

_I can't tell him that I want to have knowledge that he doesn't. Something new, something secret. Knowledge that can impress him, and impress Batty, and impress any other people I might get to know._

_And also…_

_Knowledge that would allow me to take them by surprise because they wouldn't expect me to have it._

_It's not like I don't trust Aberforth. It's just that I would like to have a little something up my sleeve._

After all, in his childhood, he had trusted other children and he had trusted the caregivers, and never imagined they would ever turn on him.

* * *

The street the pub was situated in was called Peverell Lane.

The tale of the three brothers had charmed Harry when he first heard it, and it charmed him even now. The old woman would often add random bits of facts, such as the names of the people who claimed to wield the Deathstick, the genealogy and how the Peverells vanished into other lines, speculations about the real origins of the Deathly Hallows, whether the brothers created the artefacts themselves.

The lane didn't live up to the illustrious name.

Most shops were closed.

(Harry's eyes keenly examined the nooks and crannies, any potential entrances hidden behind the wooden planks, and ivy, and rune-inscribed plates. Plans brewed in his mind).

The only open ones they passed were an Apothecary, a grocer's, a used book shop, a strange shop that sold knives and daggers, and a quaint little place called "Dreams for Dreamers – a new life every night!" from which curious whirls of coloured mists extended.

Aberforth's hand never left his shoulder.

And then they got to the main street, and despite the small amount of people lingering about, impressions of light, and sun, and laughter filled his vision. Almost like the moment he left Godric's Hollow behind. Even birds chirped in a different way.

At the bakery, Harry enjoyed a dessert of whipped cream and cranberries, some good conversation with Aberforth and with the baker who told him to call her Jyotsana, and got to read a Druidic fairy tale about walking trees. He plunked several sugar cubes and sprinkled loads of cinnamon into his cocoa and no one told him off.

_If there were a place like this in Godric's Hollow, I think people there would have been a little bit happier._

* * *

Entering Gladrags Wizardwear partly swept away some of his cheer.

Harry shivered. The shop was swathed in black and mystery. Even the gothic letters, sharp and ending on little spikes, startled the visitor. He caught whiffs of frankincense and a smell he couldn't quite identify, heavy, overloading his senses.

Worst of all were the mannequins.

At first, he mistook them for humans bizarrely frozen into stillness. All of them were white and pale with a bluish tint that resembled the beginnings of frostbite. Robes of dark, cold colours draped over those figures, some of which were sitting imperially in armchairs, some embracing each other, some kneeling, some lying broken. The curtains on the opposite side barely let in enough light.

Harry stepped softly towards one of the mannequins, his forehead scrunched in puzzlement.

"How can I help you?" a voice harsh like ravens cawing broke the spell. Harry whirled on his heels.

He would have mistaken the woman for one of the mannequins. Just as sickly pale, with white hair in a long braid adorned with black pearls, she had angular features and merciless light blue eyes.

"Emmeline Vance, at your service," she told him with a smile-less face.

Harry didn't tell her his name. She looked like the type to hunt you down if you displeased her.

Aberforth barked in laughter.

"Stop spooking the lad, Emmeline," he told her good-naturedly, making the woman frown at him as if she didn't know she was doing exactly that. "And you wonder why so few commission robes from you."

He bent down to half-embrace Harry and introduce him proudly, "This is Harry, my charge. I'd like you to make some robes for him. Preferably something cheerful. If you're capable of that," he ended in a mutter.

_I still think it's a bad idea to tell her my name._

Emmeline scrutinised the boy. A wave of her tools flushed to Harry, measuring every inch of his skin.

"Which style would you like?" Despite her rather harsh facial features, she didn't sound impolite. Just... lacking any simpering in front of a customer that the caregivers at the orphanage had been so prone to. That relieved Harry.

"Style?" he asked in a second. All he knew about robes was that they were those cumbersome things that looked like dresses and got in the way of walking sometimes (Batty had made him wear a robe that belonged to her nephew Gellert in his childhood, who apparently had been so tall around Harry's age that the black-haired boy drowned in it). "The usual, I guess."

"He doesn't know about our fashion?" the woman accused. "I won't forgive this crime even from you, Mr Dumbledore."

The old man scratched his neck, obviously not too worried about having her forgiveness.

"I think some explanations are in order." In a lower voice, he muttered, "Can't believe Bathilda and I've overlooked this..."

And so Harry found out that aside from the cumbersome things there existed open robes you had to throw on your shoulders (wearing just trousers and shirts was too muggle and bad taste in the polite society), tunic-like robes, medieval-like gowns, weird bathrobe-like things, multi-layered robes donned for ceremonies, closed robes that didn't require anything underneath, and many others. Surprisingly, Emmeline explained everything clearly and showed him everything on the mannequins she kept for this purpose.

Harry fancied open and tunic-like robes the most, and so he asked Aberforth for those.

_Closed robes look wicked cool, make me feel like a real wizard I've read about in books, but they'll suck when I'll need to climb a fence or into someone's home._

Harry almost shivered when the image of so many abandoned houses just across the road sprung up at him.

_Of course, I won't be careless. It's the magical world, after all, so even abandoned houses will probably have a nasty surprise or two. But when I'm prepared?_

"We can make you dress robes, too, just in case we ever have to attend a social function," Aberforth offered meanwhile, not at all guessing what was going on in his charge's mind.

Harry fiddled with his sleeve. "Is it likely? I've never been to them before."

"I'm invited to some Ministry balls occasionally. Head of Hogsmeade, Albus' brother…" His lips curled in distaste. "You get it."

"I don't think I want to go with you."

"You can't believe how happy your social reticence makes me in this case. Usually I burn the invitations as soon as the owls with them cross my windowsill."

"Good thing you don't burn the owls," Harry said, watching as Emmeline packed the newly made robes into an elaborately decorated box.

_What's the point of all this box, ribbons, and wrapping paper business? I mean, I'm going to tear it all up when I open it anyway. Such a waste._

But Aberforth positively beamed when he presented the package to Harry, so perhaps it wasn't a complete waste.

* * *

Aberforth made good on his promise to introduce Harry to some of his friends, but he hadn't anticipated that the man would do it all in one day or that his friends would be so bizarre.

They bought a few quills and some parchment from a cantankerous old man in Scrivenshaft's who evil-eyed Harry the moment the boy drifted closer to any of his precious writing supplies.

They ordered a pair of boots protected by runes in "Boots for Battlers". Harry liked the shopkeeper, a calm, tall man with a small insignia emblazoned across his breast pocket – a bell encircled by a wreath of orange flowers. McKinnon emblem, Harry remembered from Batty's lessons. They would have stayed to chat, but a crash resounded from the upper floor, and Boduoc McKinnon only had the time to tiredly breathe out "Marlene..." before running up the stairs.

They visited Dervish&Banges, a magical equipment shop that promised to become one of Harry's very favourites, despite the dislike Aberforth harboured for the man running it, with them glowering and smirking at each other all the while. There, Harry's guardian commissioned something special for the boy, a surprise.

They only strolled up and down High Street, but with all the shopping, and greetings, and introductions, they trip lasted for a few hours, ending in Jyotsana's bakery again, where the woman offered them a sumptuous dinner to celebrate Harry's first day in Hogsmeade.

Somewhere during the day, a smile snuck onto his face. It refused to fully leave. Even when they arrived at the pub – Harry disregarded the scented fumes that assaulted his nose and ignored Mrs Norris feasting upon a mouse on a wheel table – and he looked at himself in the mirror, it stayed there, a silent, secret memento of happiness.

_Everything is so different here_ , he mused as Aberforth tucked him to sleep, citing his damn book again. _The smells, the sounds, the light, the people. I feel, like everything that happened in my life before was just a prologue, like I'm in a different world now._

_It's not a world I want to leave._

Hogsmeade and love would never fully erase the scars of loneliness, betrayal, and slowly descending madness of Godric's Hollow. Harry couldn't re-write the past. Batty had told him about Obliviate, a spell that wiped away memories, but Harry wouldn't want to forget even if he could.

No, he would prefer to keep in mind the lessons he had learnt and somehow move forward.

The hope allowed him to pretend the next morning that, in the haze of night-time visions, the words 'Hogsmeade' and 'soon' had not been spoken.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Hogsmeade. I'm using this story as an opportunity to explore the secrets of this village because, while I've seen stories focused on life in Diagon and Knockturn, I've never seen anyone write about Hogsmeade as more than this post-card pretty happy place. There will be both magical and historical mysteries as well as politics around it as Harry gets older and starts helping Aberforth not only in the pub but also in the Council.
> 
> \- Evil!Harry. This story doesn't contain it. Sure, this Harry will eventually have to make some arguable decisions and he's not exactly a stronghold of moral integrity (he's all smiles and happiness now because he's finally out of GH but the feels will die down, don't worry), but he won't torture anyone for fun, kill arbitrarily, or join Voldemort.
> 
> \- Harry won't have any elemental magic here, Necromancy is quite enough for him. I do have an Elemental Magic-wielder!Harry fic tho and it's called "Design Your Universe".
> 
> \- My tumblr is valloryr. I don't often post fic-related stuff unless asked, but you can find a raw, unbeta'd chapter 14 of IWGA (it's unedited and posted as a favour! So, it's more of a 'read at your own peril' deal), a snippet from the next chapter of Our Carnival of Dreams, and the beginning of a Dimension-travel AU among the relatively recent posts. You can ask me any questions there :)
> 
> \- Next chapter: more about Harry's duties and Hogsmeade, Harry gets a present, magical mirrors, Harry learns some magic, first friend (any guesses?).
> 
> If there's anything you'd like to ask, a character/place/event/pairing/magic you'd like to see, please ask in a PM, review, or tumblr.

**Author's Note:**

> I used to post this story under the name of "From the Depths of Darkness", and while the gist of it remains the same, it's undergone major changes.


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